Accurate monitoring of Earth's surface temperature through satellite-derived information supports the understanding of many of our planet’s ecosystems, including physical processes that govern the three major cycles: carbon, energy and water.
Leveraging multiple earth observation datasets and innovative patented technology, Planet provides a twice-daily, global, consistent and accurate Land Surface Temperature products.
These datasets aren't just numbers; it's a valuable tool for monitoring changes in cities, or understanding plant health and water availability. Also, this data plays a crucial role in assessing climate and meteorological risks by tracking temperature anomalies and shifts over time using the long archive capability.
What makes Planet’s LST stand out is its unique blend of microwave and optical data, allowing the observation of temperature regardless of the cloud condition, so data can be compared consistently over time and space, providing the detailed insights needed for various applications.
Note
Check out the technical specification for more detailed information.
Figure 1: Measurements of Land Surface Temperature southeast of Berlin, Germany. The image above represents the skin temperature from a single day, with each pixel representing a 100 x 100 meter area. Below, the measurements of Land Surface Temperature of a single point are plotted over 5 years with the baseline climatology, showing how temperature levels compare to the expected average for the area.
Use Cases¶
Agriculture¶
- Crop Stress Monitoring: Using Planet Land Surface Temperature as input in Energy balanced based Evaporation models, crop stress can be detected early on and allows early intervention.
- Phenology development: LST can be used as input for Growing Degree Days (check out the blog post). Growing degree days (GDD) is a weather-based indicator for assessing crop development. Crop producers use a measure of heat accumulation (temperature) to predict plant and pest development rates as the date for when a crop reaches maturity. The advantage of LST-based GDD lies in its ability to specifically monitor crop conditions, providing insights into the growth and development of crops, as opposed to relying solely on environmental conditions derived from air temperature.
- Seeding Depth Prescription: high resolution LST is promising for understanding within-field variability hence planting depth prescription in order to achieve improved uniformity of emergence and plant stand tailored to local environment, soil and management conditions.
- Yield forecasting model: If used in combination with Soil Water Content and Vegetation Optical Depth, Land Surface temperature can be used in yield forecasting model. Heat anomalies damage yields during different phases of the growing season, making it a critical parameter in the yield prediction model at regional scale.
Weather and Climate Monitoring¶
Tracking conditions over years and decades, Land Surface Temperature data provides a baseline understanding of normal and abnormal conditions for any given region.
- Heatwave monitoring: Planet land surface temperature is able to monitor hot and dry conditions. The relationship between soil moisture and temperature indicates the severity and extent of drought conditions and the effect it has on crops, ecosystems, and the human population.
- Urban Heat Island: Urban environments experience higher temperatures compared to their rural surroundings. Planet Land Surface Temperature can be instrumental in identifying the urban areas most impacted by heat and help governments and local administration to pinpoint interventions.
Environmental Impact monitoring¶
- Quantify the effect of restoration initiatives: Land Surface Temperature can be used to capture landscape changes due to intervention activities (e.g. reforestation) and the impact those changes have on the climate of the region (e.g. cooling down).
Basic Specifications¶
| Property | LST Enhanced Resolution | LST Long Archive |
|---|---|---|
| Pixel size | 100 m | 1000 m |
| Temporal resolution | 137-365 observations per year | 137-365 observations per year |
| Geographical coverage | Global | Global |
| Latency | ~12 hours after overpass of the satellites | ~12 hours after overpass of the satellites |
| Data availability | 2017 - Present | 2002 - Present* |
*with 10 months data gap between October 4th, 2011 and July 25th, 2012.
Data Access¶
- Access LST data through our APIs:
- Check out these code examples:
- Jupyter Notebook that accesses LST through the Planet Subscriptions API and creates data visualizations.
- Growing Degree Days Notebook demonstrates how to calculte Growing Degree Days (GDD), or Thermal Time, based on Planet Land Surface Temperature.
- Collection of custom scripts for Sentinel Hub, including scripts to visualize LST in EO Browser and to calculate LST anomalies.
- Explore Planet Sandbox Data on Sentinel Hub.
- Jupyter Notebooks that demonstrates how to quantify and map heatwave over cities based on the Land Surface Temperature collections using the Sentinel hub Processing API.
Documentation and Training¶
- Explore the technical specification for more detailed information about the product.
- Learn more about the data validation.
- Follow the Intro to Land Surface Temperature course to get started.
Blog Posts¶
- Satellite-Based Land Surface Temperature for Deriving Growing Degree Days
- Seeing African Restoration from Space: Planet and Justdiggit Enable Nature-based Solutions to Regreen the Land
- CornCaster: How Planet’s Yield Forecasting Solution is Helping Agriculturists and Economists Get Ahead of This Year’s Harvest
Engage with Planet¶
We are continually working to improve our technical documentation and support. Please help by sharing your experience with us.