About

Land Surface Temperature (LST) is an important variable within the Earth climate system. It describes processes such as the exchange of energy and water between the land surface and atmosphere, and influences the rate and timing of plant growth.

Accurately understanding LST at the global and regional level helps to evaluate land surface–atmosphere exchange processes in models and, when combined with other physical properties such as vegetation and soil moisture, provides a valuable metric of surface state.

LST also provides independent temperature data to complement in situ measurements and reanalysis associated with near-surface air temperature – a fundamental target outlined in the UNFCCC Paris agreement.

The LST_cci project aims to provide an accurate view of temperatures across land surfaces globally over the past 20 to 25 years and meet the requirements of Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) for climate applications by developing techniques to merge archived data from a variety of satellites into a combined long-term satellite record for climate.

Objective

About the project

The project will more specifically provide the following results: