The use of aircraft-based Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanner (TIMS) data to measure surface energy budgets on a landscape scale

A series of Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanner Data (TIMS) was collected over the H. J. Andrews experimental forest in western Oregon and at the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in North Carolina. Flight lines were overlapped with an 8 to 28 minute time difference between flight lines. Concurrent radiosonde measurements of atmospheric profiles of air and dew point temperatures provided inputs to LOWTRAN6 for atmospheric radiance corrections of the TIMS data. Surface temperature differences over time between flight lines allowed the development of thermal response numbers (TRN) which characterized the thermal response of the different surface types. The polygons containing mostly soil and bare rock had the lowest TRN whereas the forested polygons were the highest. Results indicate that forest canopy temperatures measured by the TIMS are comparable to needle thermocouples temperatures. ET models developed from the TIMS data obtained similar ET rates as those using energy balance techniques.