ATMOSPHERIC CORRECTION OF LANDSAT SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE BY USING TERRA MODIS

Thermal infrared images of Landsat-5 TM and Landsat-7 ETM+ sensors have been unrivalled sources of high resolution thermal remote sensing (60m for ETM+, 120m for TM) for more than two decades. Atmospheric effect that degrades the accuracy of Sea Surface Temperature (SST) measurement significantly, however, can not be corrected as the sensors have only one thermal channel. Recently, MODIS sensor onboard Terra satellite is equipped with dual-thermal channels (31 and 32) of which the difference of at-satellite brightness temperature can provide atmospheric correction with 1km resolution. In this study we corrected the atmospheric effect of Landsat SST by using MODIS data obtained almost simultaneously. As a case study, we produced the Landsat SST near the eastern and western coast of Korea. Then we have obtained Terra/MODIS image of the same area taken approximately 30 minutes later. Atmospheric correction term was calculated by the difference between the MODIS SST (Level 2) and the SST calculated from a single channel (31 of Level 1B). This term with 1km resolution was used for Landsat SST atmospheric correction. Comparison of in situ SST measurements and the corrected Landsat SSTs has shown a significant improvement in $R^2$ from 0.6229 to 0.7779. It is shown that the combination of the high resolution Landsat SST and the Terra/MODIS atmospheric correction can be a routine data production scheme for the thermal remote sensing of ocean.