• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.355-361
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• 2023

Temperature of the Earth's surface is a crucial physical variable in understanding weather and atmospheric dynamics and in coping with extreme heat events that have a great impact on living organismsincluding humans. Thermalsensors on satellites have been a useful meansfor acquiring surface temperature information for wide areas on the globe, and thus characterization of its estimation uncertainty is of central importance for the utilization of the data. Among various factors that affect the estimation, the uncertainty caused by the algorithm itself has not been tested for the atmospheric environment of Korean vicinity. Thisstudy derivesthe uncertainty of the single-channel algorithm under the local atmospheric and oceanic conditions by using reanalysis data and buoy temperature data collected around Korea. Atmospheric profiles were retrieved from two types of reanalysis data, the fifth generation of European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts reanalysis of the global climate and weather (ERA5) and Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications-2 (MERRA-2) to investigate the effect of reanalysis data. MODerate resolution atmospheric TRANsmission (MODTRAN) was used as a radiative transfer code for simulating top of atmosphere radiance and the atmospheric correction for the temperature estimation. Water temperatures used for MODTRAN simulations and uncertainty estimation for the single-channel algorithm were obtained from marine weather buoyslocated in seas around the Korean Peninsula. Experiment results showed that the uncertainty of the algorithm varies by the water vapor contents in the atmosphere and is around 0.35K in the driest atmosphere and 0.46K in overall, regardless of the reanalysis data type. The uncertainty increased roughly in a linear manner as total precipitable water increased.