Initial Assessment of Suomi NPP VIIRS Land Surface Temperature Algorithms

The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite was launched on October 28, 2011. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) provides a majority of the Environmental Data Records (EDR) from the NPP satellite. One of the key EDRs, the VIIRS Land Surface Temperature (LST), is derived from the VIIRS data using dual and split-window regression algorithms. Coefficients of the LST algorithm are surface type dependent, referring the 17 International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) types. This study presents a preliminary evaluation and comparison of split window and dual split window methods based on the on-orbit NPP data. The evaluation was performed through the global comparison of LST retrieved from both algorithms, the performance over surface types and different atmospheric conditions, and the validation against ground estimations from SURFRAD.