Near Real-time Mapping of All-Sky Land Surface Temperature from GOES-R
using Machine Learning
Abstract
Land surface temperature (LST) is crucial for understanding earth system
processes. We expanded the Advanced Baseline Imager Live Imaging of
Vegetated Ecosystems (ALIVE) framework to estimate LST in near-real-time
for both cloudy and clear sky conditions at a 5-minute resolution. We
compared two machine learning models, Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM)
networks and Gradient Boosting Regressor (GBR), using top-of-atmosphere
(TOA) observations from the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) on the
GOES-16 satellite against observations from hundreds of measurement
locations for a 5-year period. LSTM outperformed, especially at coarser
resolutions and under challenging conditions, with a clear sky R² of
0.96 (RMSE 2.31 K) and a cloudy sky R² of 0.83 (RMSE 4.10 K) across
CONUS, based on 10-repeat Leave-One-Out Cross-Validation (LOOCV). GBR
maintained high accuracy (R² > 0.90) and ran 5.3 times
faster, with only a 0.01-0.02 R² drop. Feature importance revealed
infrared bands were key in both models, with LSTM adapting dynamically
to atmospheric changes, while GBR utilized time information in cloudy
conditions. A comparative analysis against the physically based ABILST
product showed strong agreement in winter, particularly under clear sky
conditions, while also highlighting the challenges of summer LST
estimation due to increased thermal variability. This study underscores
the strengths and limitations of data-driven models for LST estimation
and suggests potential pathways for integrating these approaches to
enhance the accuracy and coverage of LST products.