Land surface temperature and urban heat island estimates for Australian urban centres

Brief description

Land surface temperature (LST) maps, and urban heat island (UHI) maps, for Australian urban centres, calculated over summer 2015/16. Generated as part of an investigation into changes in urban greenspace.
Lineage: Land surface temperatures were calculated using data from the Landsat 8 thermal infrared sensor (TIRS) band 10. Each image was processed using the generalised single channel method of Jiménez-Muñoz et al. (2003, 2009). The required atmospheric parameters were obtained from publicly available observations by the Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). The required land surface emissivity (LSE) values were estimated using the NDVI approach (Sobrino & Raissouni 2000). As many overpasses as possible during the summer of 2015/16 were processed, and the results averaged to obtain an estimate of typical summer LST. Urban Heat Island (UHI) was estimated by subtracting from the LST images an estimate of non-urban baseline temperature. This baseline was estimated by a first-order fit to the temperature of native vegetation within and around each urban centre.