Remote Sensing of Environment 114 (2010) 15221534

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Remote Sensing of Environment

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s e v i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / r s e

Estimation of net radiation from the MODIS data under all sky conditions: Southern
Great Plains case study
Gautam Bisht a,, Rafael L. Bras b
a
b

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 15 Vassar Street, Building 48-212, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
The Henry Samueli School of Engineering, 305 Rockwell Engineering Center, Irvine, CA 92697-2700, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 25 June 2009
Received in revised form 1 February 2010
Accepted 12 February 2010
Keywords:
Remote sensing
MODIS
Net radiation
Atmospheric energy balance
Energy budget
Surface energy budget
Clear days
Cloudy days

a b s t r a c t
Net radiation is a key component in the surface radiation budget. Numerous studies have developed
frameworks to estimate net radiation or its components (upwelling or downwelling longwave and/or
shortwave radiation) from remote sensing data for clear sky conditions. Application of existing
methodologies to estimate net radiation for cloudy sky conditions from remote sensing sensors remains a
signicant challenge. In this paper, we present a framework to estimate instantaneous and daily average net
radiation under all sky conditions from using the data from the MODerate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS), onboard from the Terra satellites. Bisht et al. (2005) methodology is used for
the clear sky portion of the MODIS overpass; while for cloudy portion of the MODIS overpass an extension of
Bisht et al. (2005) methodology is applied. The extension of Bisht et al. (2005) methodology utilizes the
MODIS cloud data product (MOD06_L2) for cloud top temperature, cloud fraction, cloud emissivity, cloud
optical thickness and land surface temperature for cloudy days. The methodology is applied over the
Southern Great Plains (SGP) for a time period covering all seasons of 2006. During the MODIS-Terra
overpasses in 2006 over the SGP, only 24% of day-overpasses and 9% of night-overpasses had 75% or more of
the study region as cloud free. Thus, this proposed study is applicable to a large portion of the MODIS-Terra
overpasses. The root mean square errors (RMSE) of instantaneous and daily average net radiation estimated
under cloudy conditions using the MOD06_L2 product, comparing to ground-based measurements are
37 W m 2 and 38 W m 2, respectively. The strength of the proposed methodology is that it can rely
exclusively on remote sensing data in the absence of ancillary ground observations, thus it has a potential to
estimate surface energy budget globally.
2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Net radiation (Rn) at the Earth's surface drives the process of
evaporation, photosynthesis, and heating of soil and air. Rn is the
difference between the downwelling and upwelling radiation uxes
at the surface, including longwave and shortwave. Downwelling
shortwave radiation, RS, at the surface results from scattering,
emission and absorption within the entire atmospheric column;
while upwelling shortwave radiation can be estimated by RS and
surface albedo. Downwelling longwave, RL, and upwelling longwave
radiation, RL, are characterized by near-surface air temperature, air
emissivity, land surface temperature (LST) and surface emissivity. Net
radiation and the overall surface energy budget are important for the
development of the planetary boundary-layer. Its quantication over
heterogenous land surfaces is crucial to study landatmosphere
interactions.

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: gbisht@mit.edu (G. Bisht).
0034-4257/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.rse.2010.02.007

Remote sensing provides data pertaining to land and atmospheric

states with a high-spatial, but low-temporal resolution, when
compared to ground-based measurements. The methodologies to
estimate surface Rn or its components (RL, RL or RS) from satellite
data can be classied in two broad categories on the basis of the data
used: (i) near-surface data (e.g., land surface temperature, surface
albedo, near-surface air temperature); (ii) Top Of the Atmosphere
(TOA) radiation. Several empirical parameterizations have been
developed to estimate components of radiation budget from nearsurface air temperature, humidity and land surface temperature
(Brutsaert, 1975; Dilley & O'Brien, 1998; Idaso, 1981; Prata, 1996;
Zillman, 1972). A review of such parameterization schemes to
estimate shortwave and longwave radiation and their application to
satellite data is presented in Ellingson (1995), Pinker et al. (1995),
Niemel et al. (2001a, b), and Diak et al. (2004). Studies using TOA
radiance (for longwave radiation) or TOA reectance (for shortwave
radiation) involve developing a statistical regression that incorporates dependence on solar zenith angle and/or satellite viewing
angle (Li et al., 1993; Tang & Li, 2008; Tang et al., 2006; Wang &
Liang, 2009; Wang et al., 2005). Various remote sensing platforms

G. Bisht, R.L. Bras / Remote Sensing of Environment 114 (2010) 15221534

1523

including Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites

(GOES), the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR),
Landsat and the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS) have been used to estimate components of the surface
energy budget (Bisht et al., 2005; Diak & Gautier, 1983; Gautier
et al., 1980; Gratton et al., 1993; Jacobs et al., 2002; Lee & Ellingson,
2002; Li et al., 1993; Ma et al., 2002; Nishida et al., 2003; Tang & Li,
2008; Tang et al., 2006; Wang & Liang, 2009; Wang et al., 2005;
Wang et al., 2009; Zhou et al., 2007).
The MODIS sensor, onboard of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration's (NASA's) Terra and Aqua satellites, provides frequent global coverage in 36 spectral bands with spatial resolutions of
250 m, 500 m and 1 km in various bands. Several studies have already
utilized data from the MODIS to evaluate hydrologic models (Brown
et al., 2008; Parajka & Bloschl, 2008). In addition the MODIS data has
been assimilated to improve hydrologic and numerical weather
prediction models (Benedetti & Janiskova, 2008; Demarty et al.,
2007; Huang et al., 2008; Pan et al., 2008; Zaitchik & Rodell, 2009).
Estimates of various components of the surface energy budget from
the MODIS could not only serve as forcings to drive hydrologic
models, but also evaluate them. Numerous studies have demonstrated
the application of point-scale net radiation estimates, as well as,
spatially distributed net radiation maps, derived from remote sensing
data, to estimate evapotranspiration (Batra et al., 2006; Kim & Hogue,
2008; Nishida et al., 2003; Norman et al., 2003; Venturini et al., 2008).
Recent studies that have used the MODIS data products to estimate
components of the surface radiation are summarized in Table 1. Wang
et al. (2005) and Bisht et al. (2005) used near surface the MODIS data
products to produce estimates of various components of the surface
energy budget for clear days. While Wang et al. (2005) estimated
upwelling longwave radiation only; Bisht et al. (2005) produced
estimates of all components of net radiation. Tang et al. (2006) used
statistical regression to estimate surface shortwave budget for clear
and cloudy conditions based on top of the atmosphere (TOA)
reectance. Both Tang and Li (2008) and Wang and Liang (2009)
used regression analysis of TOA radiance to obtain surface longwave
budget for clear sky days.
Here, we extend the framework developed by Bisht et al. (2005)
to produce estimates of all components of the surface energy budget
using the MODIS cloud product (MOD06_L2) under cloudy conditions. The cloud parameters from the MOD06_L2 product that is used
in this study include cloud top temperature, cloud fraction, cloud
emissivity and cloud optical thickness. In addition, surface temperature at 5-km spatial resolution from the MOD06_L2 is also used to
estimate upwelling longwave radiation. The methodology presented

in the study is used over the Southern Great Plains (SGP) for a time
period covering all seasons of 2006. Current methodologies of
estimating Rn from remotely sensed data, which are restricted to
clear sky conditions only, discard a large portion of the MODIS
overpasses. Table 2 lists the number of acceptable clear sky and total
overpasses for the MODIS-Terra over the SGP during 2006. An
acceptable clear sky overpass is dened as one for which 75% of the
SGP was cloud free, thus it is a satisfactory candidate to which a clear
sky Rn estimation methodology can be applied over the cloud-free
portion of the overpass. Only 24% and 9% of the MODIS-Terra
overpasses during day and night, respectively, were under acceptable
clear sky conditions; thus for a large share of remotely sensed data,
Rn cannot be computed with existing methodologies. The outline of
this paper is as follows. Section 2 presents a framework to estimate
net radiation under all sky conditions by separately treating clear and
cloudy pixels within a MODIS overpass. The study site and the data
used, including ground measurement and the MODIS data products,
are described in Section 3. The results for instantaneous and daily
average net radiation using the MOD06_L2 product for cloudy days
are presented in Section 4; along with a framework to estimate net
radiation for all sky conditions. We conclude with a discussion and
nal remarks in Section 5.

Table 1
Studies using the MODIS data to estimate various components of surface energy budget.

Table 2
Number of acceptable clear sky days (i.e. 75% or more of study site had no cloud cover)
for the MODIS onboard the Terra satellite for the Southern Great Plains during 2006.
Values in the parenthesis indicate the total number of the MODIS-Terra overpasses for
the SGP region.

Study

Quantities
estimated

Wang et al.
(2005)
Bisht et al.
(2005)
Tang et al.
(2006)
Tang and Li
(2008)
Wang and Liang
(2009)

RL

Proposed study

RL ,

R S,

R S,

RL, Rnet
L ,
Rnet
S _L2,

RS, Rnet
S

RS,

MODIS data products

Clear

MOD11B1

Clear

MOD03, MOD04_L2, MOD07_L2,

MOD11_L2, MOD43B1
MOD21KM, MOD03, MOD05_L2,
MOD35
MOD21KM, MOD03, MOD35

Rn
Clear and
cloudy
Clear

RL, RL, Rnet

L

Sky
condition

RL, RL, Rnet

L

Clear

RL, RL, Rnet

L , RS,

RS, Rnet
S , Rn

Clear and
cloudy

MOD21KM, MYD021KM, MOD03,

MYD03, MOD06_L2, MYD06,
MOD07_L2, MOD11C3
MOD03, MOD04_L2, MOD06_L2,
MOD07_L2, MOD11_L2, MCD43B3

RL downwelling longwave radiation; RL upwelling longwave radiation; RS

downwelling shortwave radiation; RS upwelling longwave radiation; Rnet
net
L
longwave radiation; Rnet
net shortwave radiation; Rn net radiation.
S

2. Methodology to estimate net radiation

An all sky conditions methodology to estimate instantaneous and
daily average net radiation from the MODIS data is presented in this
section; while Fig. 1 outlines the owchart of the proposed
methodology. The pixels within a MODIS overpass for this study
are classied as clear sky pixels if 1-km LST estimate is available from
MODIS land surface temperature and emissivity product
(MOD11_L2). Bisht et al. (2005) algorithm, briey mentioned in
Section 2.1, is applied for clear sky pixels. For cloudy pixels, a new
algorithm is proposed to estimate instantaneous net radiation that is
presented in Section 2.2. The new cloudy sky algorithm uses
MOD06_L2 data along with statistical regressions developed to
estimate near-surface air and dew temperatures from the MOD06_L2
LST.
2.1. Instantaneous net radiation: clear sky pixels with 1-km MOD11_L2
LST available
Estimation of net radiation for clear sky pixels uses the algorithm
of Bisht et al. (2005) and is presented here concisely. At the Earth's

Month

Number of acceptable
clear day-overpasses

Number of acceptable
clear night-overpasses

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Full-year

09
08
06
14
12
08
09
01
14
15
14
09
118

04
00
02
06
06
04
03
01
02
04
05
05
43

(40)
(38)
(42)
(40)
(42)
(38)
(42)
(40)
(40)
(39)
(41)
(41)
(483)

(41)
(39)
(44)
(43)
(44)
(38)
(44)
(43)
(41)
(39)
(42)
(42)
(500)

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G. Bisht, R.L. Bras / Remote Sensing of Environment 114 (2010) 15221534

Fig. 1. Flowchart to estimate instantaneous and daily average net radiation from the MODIS data for all sky conditions.

G. Bisht, R.L. Bras / Remote Sensing of Environment 114 (2010) 15221534

surface, instantaneous Rclear

[W m 2] for clear sky conditions can be
n
expressed in terms of downwelling and upwelling radiations as:
Rclear
= Rclear
Rclear
+ Rclear
Rclear
n
L
L
S
S
= Rclear
1 + Rclear
Rclear
L
L
S
clear

clear

clear

clear

where RS
, RS
, RL
and RL
are downwelling shortwave
radiation [W m 2], upwelling shortwave radiation [W m 2], downwelling longwave radiation [W m 2] and upwelling longwave
radiation [W m 2] for clear sky respectively; and is land surface
albedo.
A parameterization scheme developed by Zillman (1972) is used
to estimate downwelling shortwave radiation using near-surface
vapor pressure, e0 [hPa], and solar zenith angle, [rad], as
clear
RS

S0 cos2
=
1:085 cos + e0 2:7 + cos 103 +

where is 0.1 and S0, is the solar constant at the top of atmospheric, is
1367 [W m 2]. Niemel et al. (2001a) and Bisht et al. (2005) have
shown that Zillman's (1972) scheme tends to overestimate the downwelling shortwave radiation, thus we propose using a value of 0.2.
Downwelling longwave radiation is obtained from air emissivity, a,
and air temperature, Ta [K], at near surface; while upwelling longwave
requires surface emissivity, s [], and surface temperature, Ts [K]. Air
emissivity is parameterized using a scheme proposed by Prata (1996).
Near-surface vapor pressure, e0 [hPa], is computed from dew point
temperature, Td [K], using ClausiusClapeyron equation (Rogers & Yau,
1989).
clear

RL

= a Ta

3a

 q
a = 11 + exp 1:2 + 3
46:5
=
e
Ta 0

3c


e0 = 6:11 exp
clear

RL



Lv
1
1

Rv 273:15 Td

= s Ts

3d

dp
= g
dz
P L P S
= g
z

where P L is the lowest pressure level of the MODIS atmospheric prole

measurement; while P S is the surface pressure level obtained from the
MODIS data. The ambient lapse rate is assumed to be equal to 6.5 K/km
(Cosgrove et al., 2003) and can be used to relate temperature at the
lowest pressure level, TLa, and near-surface temperature, TaS, as:
dT
0
= 6:5 K=km
dz

TaL TaS
0
= 6:5 K=km
z

Combining Eqs. (5) and (6) and rearranging the terms, nearsurface air temperature can be estimated as:

6:50 K=km  S
L
P P :
g

Ta = Ta +

Even though the above equation is strictly applicable to air temperature, we additionally use it to estimate near-surface dew temperature.
Near-surface Td is used to compute air emissivity through Eqs. (3b), (3c)
and (3d); which is eventually used to estimate downwelling longwave
clear
radiation as Eq. (3a). Thus, the retrieval of RL
is not very sensitive to
near-surface dew temperature and justies our estimation of near-surface
Td using an identical approach as given by Eq. (7).

3e

where = 5.67 10 8 [W m 2 K 4] is the SteffanBoltzmann

constant, Lv = 2.5 106 [J kg 1] is the latent heat of vaporization
and Rv = 461 [J kg 1 K 1] is the gas constant for water vapor.
Bisht et al. (2005) used the following MODIS data products:
geolocation data (MOD03 at 1 km); aerosol depth (MOD04_L2 at
10 km); atmospheric prole data (MOD07_L2 at 5 km); land surface
temperature and surface emissivity (MOD11_L2 at 1 km); and land
surface albedo (MOD43B1 at 1 km). The methodology of Bisht et al.
(2005) used air and dew point temperatures from the MOD07_L2 at
the vertical pressure level of 1000 hPa as surrogates for near-surface
temperatures. The land surface temperature and surface emissivity
are obtained from the MOD11_L2 product. The land surface albedo is
computed as a linear combination of black-sky albedo, bs and whitesky albedo, ws, provided in the MOD43B1 data product as (Lucht
et al., 2000):
= 1S; bs + S; ws

optical depth are obtained from MOD03_L2 and MOD04_L2 data

products, respectively. For a detailed description of the algorithm to
estimate clear sky net radiation, readers are referred to Bisht et al. (2005).
Tang and Li (2008) argued that approximating air and dew
temperatures at 1000 hPa as near-surface temperatures maybe
inappropriate due to variations caused by Earth's terrain and
suggested using the hydrostatic assumption in the atmosphere to
estimate near-surface temperatures. Thus, in this study, we assume a
hydrostatic atmosphere assumption to extrapolate Ta and Td provided
at the lowest vertical pressure level from the MODIS atmospheric
prole product to estimate near-surface Ta and Td. The hydrostatic
atmospheric assumption can be written as:

3b

1525

where [] is the aerosol depth and S(, ) is the isotropic fraction

representing the state of the atmosphere between the extreme cases of
completely direct (black-sky) and diffuse (white-sky) illumination. A
look up table for computing the isotropic fraction was available from the
MODIS albedo products homepage. The solar zenith angle and aerosol

2.2. Instantaneous net radiation: cloudy pixels with 1-km MOD11_L2 LST
unavailable
[W m 2], for cloudy pixels is dened as:
The net radiation, Rcloudy
n
cloudy

Rn

cloudy

= RS

cloudy

1 + RL

cloudy

RL

8
cloudy

Under cloudy skies, the downwelling shortwave radiation, RS

[W m 2], is estimated as a linear combination of the uxes from clear
sky and cloudy sky, weighted by cloud fraction, according to the
parameterization proposed by Slingo (1989) as:
cloudy

RS

clear

= RS

h
i
= cos
1fc + fc e c

where fc [] is the cloud fraction and [] is cloud optical thickness.

cloudy
The downwelling longwave radiation for cloudy conditions, RL
2
[W m ], is estimated as a combination of downwelling radiation
from near-surface conditions and clouds as proposed by Forman and
cloudy
Margulis (2007); while the upwelling longwave radiation, RL
2
[W m ], for cloudy conditions follows the similar approach as during
clear sky conditions given by:
cloudy

RL

= a Ta + 1a c Tc

10a

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G. Bisht, R.L. Bras / Remote Sensing of Environment 114 (2010) 15221534

land surface temperature generally gets hotter than the ambient air
and vice-versa during the night. Thus, we propose conducting
separate regression analysis to estimate air temperature offsets
during day- and night-overpasses (Eqs. (11a) and (11b)). Numerous
attempts have been made to estimate daily dew temperature from
minimum, maximum and daily air temperature (Hubbard et al., 2003;
Kimball et al., 1997). Since in the present study, we obtain Ta under
cloudy conditions itself through a regression analysis, we propose
estimating Td directly from Ts as given in Eq. (11c) and (11d) for dayand night-overpasses, respectively. The procedure to estimate the
temperature offsets are presented in Section 4.1.
2.3. Daily average net radiation

Fig. 2. ARM ground stations within the Southern Great Plains in Oklahoma and Kansas.
Stations in circles, triangle and squares had SIRS station only, EBBR station; and both
SIRS and EBBR stations respectively. The dashed box shows the SGP domain for this
study to which the MODIS overpass data is reprojected.
cloudy

= s Ts

RL

10b

where c [] and Tc [K] are cloud emissivity and cloud temperature,

respectively.
The proposed methodology of estimating Rcloudy
requires numern
ous parameters regarding clouds. The Terra-MODIS cloud product
provides cloud optical depth at 1-km spatial resolution (for Eq. (9));
while cloud emissivity (for Eq. (10a)), cloud top temperature (for
Eq. (10a)) and land surface temperature (for Eq. (10b)) are available
at the 5-km spatial resolution. Ideally for Tc in Eq. (10a) cloud base
temperature should be used, but the Terra-MODIS cloud product only
provides estimates of cloud top temperature. The authors acknowledge that using cloud top temperature instead introduces uncertainty
in the estimation of downwelling longwave radiation. Computation of
downwelling longwave radiation requires surface air and dew
temperature (Eqs. (3b), (3c), (3d) and (10a)), which under clear
sky are available at 5-km resolution from the MOD07_L2. For cloudy
conditions, we estimate Ta and Td by subtracting o_sets from 5-km LST
provided by the MOD06_L2 product, T06_L2
, as:
s

12

tset trise

11a

night

if night  overpass

11b

day

if day  overpass

11c

3. Study site and data used

night

if night  overpass

11d

The proposed methodology of estimating net radiation under

cloudy conditions from the MODIS data is applied over the Southern
Great Plains region (SGP). The SGP covers southern part of Kansas and
most of Oklahoma, extending from 34.5 to 38.5N and95.5 to
99.5W, as shown in Fig. 2. The dashed box in Fig. 2 corresponds to the

06 L2

06 L2

Td = Ts

2R
  n

t t
sin ovp rise

if day  overpass

06 L2

Td = Ts

day

Ta = Ts

avg

Rn

where trise and tset corresponds to local time when Rn becomes positive
and negative, respectively. It should be pointed out that trise and tset are
related to the local sunrise and sunset time; and were approximated as
1 h after local sunrise time and 1 h before local sunset time, respectively.
In the present work, daily average net radiation is estimated using a
single instantaneous net radiation retrieval. The authors acknowledge
that the sinusoidal approximation of net radiation may not accurately
capture the diurnal variation of Rn for days when cloud cover was
present during a portion or entire day. The use of data from polarorbiting satellite only, as done in this study, highlights the limitation of
in retrieving diurnal cycle of net radiation. Observations from the MODIS
sensor onboard of Aqua satellite would serve as additional data source to
improve the estimation of Ravg
n and has been separately pursued by the
authors (Bisht and Bras, submitted for publication). But additional
remote sensing data from geostationary satellites is needed to
accurately capture the diurnal variation of net radiation.

06 L2

Ta = Ts

Daily average net radiation estimates are more meaningful totals

than instantaneous net radiation estimates. Methodologies aimed to
estimate evapotranspiration from remote sensing data require daily
average net radiation values (Batra et al., 2006; Nishida et al., 2003;
Norman et al., 2003; Venturini et al., 2008). Bisht et al. (2005)
suggested a sinusoidal model to estimate the diurnal cycle of net
radiation, which closely follows the framework for retrieving the
diurnal cycle of surface temperature proposed by Lagouarde and
2
Brunet (1983). The daily average net radiation, Ravg
], in terms
n [W m
of the instantaneous (clear or cloudy) net radiation estimate obtained
at local satellite overpass time, tovp, is given as (Bisht et al., 2005):

where day
[K] and night
[K] are offsets for air temperature during daya
a
and night-overpasses; while day
[K] and night
[K] are offsets for dew
d
d
temperature during day- and night-overpasses. During the day, the
Table 3
The MODIS products used in this study.
MODIS product

Short name

Spatial resolution

Parameters used

Clear sky algorithm

Cloudy sky algorithm

Geolocation product
Aerosol product
Cloud product

MOD03
MOD04_L2
MOD06_L2

1 km
10 km
1 km
5 km

x
x

Atmospheric prole product

Land surface temperature and emissivity
Albedo product

MOD07_L2
MOD11_L2
MCD43B3

5 km
1 km
1 km

Solar zenith angle, latitude and longitude

Optical depth
Cloud optical depth
Cloud emissivity, cloud fraction, cloud top
temperature, and land surface temperature
Air temperature and dew temperature
Surface temperature and surface emissivity
White- and black-sky albedo

x
x
x

G. Bisht, R.L. Bras / Remote Sensing of Environment 114 (2010) 15221534

grid, with interval of 0.009, to which each MODIS overpass data was
reprojected. The region has a relatively at terrain with heterogenous
land cover (Batra et al., 2006). The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program funded by U.S. Department of Energy,
maintains continuous measurements of various meteorological and
surface variables. In this study, we utilized data from Energy Balance
Bowen Ratio (EBBR) stations and Solar and Infrared RadiationStations
(SIRS). The spatial distribution of ground stations within the SGP,
along with the data-type measured at each location, is shown in Fig. 2.
EBBR stations provided measurements of air temperature and vapor
pressure (which is used to compute dew temperature) at 2.05 m
above the land surface; while SIRS recorded upwelling and downwelling shortwave, as well as, longwave radiation. The local sunrise
and sunset times for the study region are obtained from the website of
US Naval Observatory, Astronomical Application Department (http://
aa.usno.navy.mil/), which are used in estimating daily average net
radiation.
A detail description about the MODIS data products used for clear
sky algorithm is presented in Bisht et al. (2005). Additionally, in the

1527

present study we utilize the MOD06_L2 product. In the MOD06_L2

product, cloud top temperature, cloud emissivity and cloud fraction
are estimated at 5-km resolution from a CO2 slicing technique using
the MODIS channels 31 (11.03 m), 33 (13.34 m), 34 (13.64 m), 35
(13.94 m) and 36 (14.24 m) (Menzel et al., 2006). Cloud optical
thickness is estimated at 1-km resolution from the MODIS channel 1
(0.645 m) which exploits the fact that the reection function of
clouds at a nonabsorbing band in the visible wavelength region is
primarily a function of the cloud optical thickness (King et al., 1998).
The 5-km LST available from the MOD06_L2 product is obtained from
various sources including the MOD11_L2 product, National Centers
for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) gridded analysis and Data
Assimilation Ofce (DAO) data (for details see King et al. (1998)). In
Section 4.1, we examine the accuracy of 5-km MOD06_L2 LST data.
The various MODIS data products, along with their spatial resolution
and parameters used, are summarized in Table 3. All the MODIS data
products are available in Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) and are
obtained from the NASA's Warehouse Inventory Search Tool (WIST)
website.

Fig. 3. Comparison of 5-km land surface temperature (LST) from the MODIS cloud data product (MOD06_L2): panels (a) and (b) are comparison of MOD06_L2 LST against
observation during day- and night-overpasses, respectively; panels (c) and (d) are comparison of MOD06_L2 LST against observed air temperature during day- and nightoverpasses; and; panels (e) and (f) are comparison of MOD06_L2 LST against observed dew temperature during day- and night-overpasses. Bias is computed as LST-MOD06_L2
minus observed values.

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G. Bisht, R.L. Bras / Remote Sensing of Environment 114 (2010) 15221534

Table 4
Bias, root mean square errors (RMSE), correlation (R2) and number of data points for various quantities given or derived from the MODIS data and ground observations. Bias is
computed as the MODIS data minus observed data.
MODIS data

Observation data

Overpass time

Sky condition

Bias

RMSE

R2

Number of data points

5-km land surface temperature from MOD06_L2

Land surface temperature

Day
Night
Day
Night
Day
Night
Day
Night
Day
Night

Clear + Cloudy
Clear + Cloudy
Clear + Cloudy
Clear + Cloudy
Clear + Cloudy
Clear + Cloudy
Clear
Clear
Clear
Clear

1.62
0.19
4.5
0.51
16.01
7.18
3.47
0.85
16.45
8.73

3.80
2.54
2.76
2.12
5.00
4.94
2.93
2.46
6.08
3.17

0.95
0.97
0.97
0.98
0.86
0.87
0.95
0.96
0.79
0.94

8261
8320
4710
5240
3347
2927
590
251
605
256

Near-surface air temperature (Ta)

Near-surface dew temperature (Td)
Near-surface Ta from MOD07_L2
Near-surface Td from MOD07_L2

4. Results
4.1. Temperatures: land surface, air and dew
In this section, we compare the 5-km land surface temperature
obtained from the MOD06_L2 product against ground measurements.

Furthermore, the temperature offsets mentioned in Eqs. (11a), (11b),

(11c) and (11d) to estimate air and dew temperature under cloudy
conditions are also obtained. Direct measurements of LST weren't
available, thus measurements of upwelling longwave by SIRS stations
were converted to obtain surrogate observations of LST using Eq. (3e),
while assuming a constant surface emissivity of 0.98. The scatter plot

Fig. 4. Comparison of 5-km land surface temperature (LST) from the MOD06_L2 product with near-surface air and obtained from the MOD07_L2 product under hydrostatic
atmosphere assumption. Panels (a) and (b) are comparison of MOD06_L2 with near-surface air temperature from MOD07_L2 during day- and night-overpass; panels (c) and (d) are
comparison of MOD06_L2 with near-surface dew temperature from MOD07_L2 during day- and night-overpass.

G. Bisht, R.L. Bras / Remote Sensing of Environment 114 (2010) 15221534

between T06_L2
and ground observations is shown in Fig. 3(a) and (b)
s
for day- and night-overpasses. The bias, root mean square error
(RMSE) and correlation (R2) between T06_L2
and ground observations
s
are summarized in Table 4. In this study, the bias is computed as the
MODIS data minus in-situ observations (the same denition is also
used when we report values of bias from any other study). Recently
Wang et al. (2008) compared clear sky nighttime surface temperatures provided by another MODIS product, MOD07_L2 over eight
ground locations (six in U.S. and two in Germany). They reported
biases in MOD07_L2 LST that varied between 3.38 [K] to 3.14 [K];
while RMSE ranged from 1.97 [K] to 4.10 [K]. Thus, the surface
temperature estimates from the MOD06_L2 are not only comparable
to those obtained from the MOD07_L2, but have an advantage of being
available for all sky conditions, while MOD07_L2 LST are produced for
only clear sky pixels.
Air and dew temperatures, needed to compute downwelling
longwave radiation, are estimated as offsets from T06_L2
. EBBR
s
measurements of vapor pressure at 2.05 m above land surface are
converted to Td measurements for comparison purposes. Scatterplot
of T06_L2
and Ta during day- and night-overpasses is shown in Fig. 3(c)
s
and (d); while Fig. 3(e) and (f) shows the scatter plot between T06_L2
s
and Td for day- and night-overpasses. Bias, RMSE and R2 are
summarized in Table 4. The RMSE and R2 between T06_L2
and Ta for
s
both day- and night-overpasses are better than those between T06_L2
s
and Ts; while statistical agreement between T06_L2
and Td is not as
s
strong (higher RMSE and lower R2). Sensitivity analysis of down-

1529

welling longwave radiation with respect to dew temperature has

shown that errors in Td up to 5 [K] (which of the order of RMSE
between T06_L2
and Td) result in errors of about 15 [W m 2] in the
s
estimation of downwelling longwave radiation, which are signicant.
The present methodology could certainly benet from a more
accurate estimate of dew temperature under cloudy conditions
based solely on remotely sensed information in the future. The
temperature offsets used in Eqs. (11a), (11b), (11c) and (11d) are
estimated as biases from scatter plots as:
day

= 4:35 K

night

day

= 16:01 K

night

= 0:51 K

= 7:18 K:

13a
13b
13c
13d

The above estimates of temperature offsets rely on ancillary

surface measurements and such measurements are sparse globally.
We also present an alternate approach to estimate temperature
offsets that does not require surface measurements. Thus, the
proposed framework of estimating Rn can rely exclusively on remote
sensing information when surface measurements regarding air and
dew temperatures are absent. The comparison of near-surface air and

Fig. 5. Error histograms between observed and estimated components of net radiation for cloudy overpasses: (a) downwelling longwave; (b) upwelling longwave; (c) net longwave;
(d) downwelling shortwave; (e) upwelling shortwave; and (f) net shortwave radiation. Bias is computed as estimated minus observed values.

1530

G. Bisht, R.L. Bras / Remote Sensing of Environment 114 (2010) 15221534

Table 5
Bias, root mean square errors (RMSE), correlation (R2) and number of data points for
various quantities given or derived from the MODIS data and ground observations. Bias
is computed as MODIS data minus observed data.
Sky condition Component
of the surface
energy budget
RL
RL
Net RL
RS
RS
Net RS
Instantaneous Rn

Cloudy

Daily average Rn
RL
RL
Net RL
RS
RS
Net RS
Instantaneous Rn

Clear

Daily average Rn

Overpass
time

Bias

RMSE R2

Number of
data points

Day + Night
0.28 19.34 0.95 3552
Day + Night 1.05 16.11 0.98 3552
Day + Night
1.33 21.99 0.75 3552
Day
25.64 66.52 0.92 1156
Day
5.41 19.14 0.81 1156
Day
20.24 54.89 0.93 1156
Day
35.16 50.58 0.95 1156
Night
5.23 17.72 0.33 2396
Day + Night
7.91 37.44 0.99 3552

34.00 37.72 0.93 1152

Day + Night
3.87 20.79 0.93 1653
Day + Night 2.50 15.76 0.98 1653
Day + Night
6.37 19.37 0.86 1653
Day
17.82 42.05 0.96 1097
Day
17.40 17.79 0.79 1097
Day
35.22 40.78 0.96 1097
Day
23.08 39.34 0.96 1118
Night
3.72 11.51 0.51 476
Day + Night
16.19 34.60 0.99 1594

11.27 31.98 0.93 991

Fig. 6. Comparison of estimated and observed net radiation for cloudy overpasses.
Circles and triangles represent day- and night-overpasses of the MODIS. Bias is
computed as estimated minus observed values.

dew temperatures (using a hydrostatic assumption in the atmosphere) from the MOD07_L2 data with T06_L2
, under clear sky
s
conditions, are shown in Fig. 4. The temperature offsets computed
as biases from the scatter plot as:
day; clear

= 3:47 K

night; clear

day; clear

= 0:85 K

14b

= 16:45 K

14c

night; clear

14a

= 8:73 K:

14d

where the superscript emphasizes that these offsets are obtained

under clear sky conditions. The difference in temperature offsets
obtained from surface measurements and the MOD07_L2 product
during the day and night are 1 [K] and 1.5 [K], respectively. In
Section 4.2, the results regarding various components of the surface
energy budget under cloudy skies use temperature offsets obtained
from surface measurements, as presented in Eqs. (13a)(13d). The
overall impact of using temperature offsets obtained under clear sky
conditions (Eqs. (14a)(14d)) to estimate net radiation is also
presented in Section 4.2.

radiation were not corrected before computing instantaneous net

radiation. Tang and Li (2008) reported an overall bias, RMSE and R2 for
clear sky RL for the Surface Radiation Budget Network (SURFRAD)
locations in U.S. as 20.3 [W m 2], 30.1 [W m 2] and 0.91,
respectively; while clear sky net longwave radiation, Rnet
L , statistics
were 11.7 [W m 2], 26.1 [W m 2] and 0.94. Wang and Liang (2009)
similarly estimated clear sky RL and clear sky Rnet
L for SURFRAD locations
in U.S. from the Terra and Aqua satellites. Overall bias by Wang and Liang
2
(2009) for RL and Rnet
] and
L from the Terra satellite were 0.40 [W m
2
2
2.80 [W m ]; while RMSE were 17.60 [W m ] and 17.72 [W m 2].
Thus, the longwave radiation estimates presented in this section are
comparable to those reported in literature, while having an added
advantage of being available under cloudy conditions, though at a coarse
5-km resolution. Wang et al. (2008) estimated net surface shortwave
radiation using TOA reectance and obtained RMSE under clear and
cloudy skies of 20 [W m 2] and 35 [W m 2], respectively. The RMSE
between the estimated and observed albedo (not shown here) is 0.02

4.2. Instantaneous and daily average net radiation: under cloudy skies
condition
Next, we present results of instantaneous Rn obtained using data
about cloud properties and 5-km surface temperature from the
MOD06_L2 product; along with geolocation (MOD03), surface albedo
data (MCD43B3) and temperature offsets obtained in Section 4.1.
Under clear sky conditions, a higher resolution 1-km LST MOD11_L2
product is available and the MOD07_L2 provides direct estimates of Ta
and Td at 20 vertical pressure levels. The MODIS overpasses that were
deemed as under clear sky in 2006, listed in Table 2, were omitted
from the analysis presented here.
The error histogram between estimated and in-situ measurements
of downwelling, upwelling and net radiation for shortwave and
longwave is shown in Fig. 5; while the summary of bias, RMSE and R2
are presented in Table 5.The biases from individual components of net

Fig. 7. Comparison of daily average estimated and observed net radiation for cloudy
overpasses. Bias is computed as estimated minus observed values.

G. Bisht, R.L. Bras / Remote Sensing of Environment 114 (2010) 15221534

1531

Fig. 8. Error histograms between observed and estimated radiations for clear sky overpasses: (a) downwelling longwave; (b) upwelling longwave; (c) net longwave; (d) downwelling
shortwave; (e) upwelling shortwave; and (f) net shortwave radiation. Bias is computed as estimated minus observed values.

[], which is 9% of the mean value; while the bias and R2 are less than
1% of the mean value and 0.87, respectively.
The comparison of instantaneous Rn estimates with ground
measurements during day- and night-overpasses are shown in Fig. 6.
The bias, RMSE and R2, including day- and night-overpasses, are 10.46
[W m 2], 38.70 [W m 2] and 0.99. The R2 between estimated and
measured Rn during the night-overpass is signicantly lower (0.32)
when compared to day-overpasses (0.95), as summarized in Table 4.
Analysis shows that major source error in estimating instantaneous Rn
comes from the over estimation of downwelling solar radiation when
compared to observations. The use of temperature offsets obtained
under clear sky conditions only (Eqs. (14a)(14d)) has little impact on
Rn estimates, including day- and night-overpasses, with an overall
bias, RMSE and R2 as 3.28 [W m 2], 40.49 [W m 2] and 0.99,
respectively. Fig. 7 shows the scatter plot between estimated daily
average net radiation and ground observations. The bias, RMSE and R2
between estimated daily average net radiation and ground observations were 22.75 [W m 2], 34.11 [W m 2] and 0.95. Overall the
proposed methodology is successfully able to estimate instantaneous
and daily average net radiation from MOD06_L2 for 2006. Furthermore, when the use of ancillary ground measurements in estimating
temperature offsets is excluded, the impact on Rn estimates is minor.

overpasses and 9% of night-overpasses had 75% or more of the SGP

region as cloud free. Thus, the methodologies that focus on retrieving
net radiation during clear sky days are not applicable to a large portion

4.3. Instantaneous estimates of net radiation: Under all sky conditions

In 2006, a large portion of the MODIS-Terra overpasses over the
SGP were contaminated by the presence of clouds. Only 24% of day-

Fig. 9. Comparison of estimated and observed net radiation for clear sky overpasses.
Circles and triangles represent day- and night-overpasses of the MODIS. Bias is
computed as estimated minus observed values.

1532

G. Bisht, R.L. Bras / Remote Sensing of Environment 114 (2010) 15221534

Fig. 10. Comparison of daily average estimated and observed net radiation for clear sky
overpasses. Bias is computed as estimated minus observed values.

of the MODIS-Terra overpasses. In the previous section, we successfully demonstrated that for cloudy days, the MOD06_L2 product can
be used to estimate Rn, albeit at a coarser 5-km spatial resolution
when compared to 1-km Rn estimates available under clear sky
conditions. Before proceeding to present the framework of estimating
Rn for all sky conditions, the results obtained using the approach of
Bisht et al. (2005) under clear sky conditions for 2006 are presented

for the sake of completeness. Fig. 8 shows the error histograms

between estimate and in-situ measurements for the various components of longwave and shortwave energy budget; while Figs. 9 and 10
present results for instantaneous and daily average Rn. The statistical
summary of the results for components of the surface energy budget
under clear sky conditions is given in Table 5.
It is then possible to use the high resolution (1-km) clear skies
algorithm with the lower resolution (5-km) cloudy skies algorithm to
suggest an all-sky conditions methodology to estimate instantaneous
and daily net radiation as shown in Fig. 1. An example of this merged
framework to the MODIS-Terra overpass on 24th July, 2006, at 17:35
UTC is shown in Fig. 11. Clouds are present in eastern and southwestern part of the SGP and occupy 23% the SGP domain. In Fig. 11
(b) and (c), estimates of Rn are shown for the clear sky and cloudy
region of the image. Finally the merged Rn map is shown in Fig. 11(d).
Similarly, Fig. 12 demonstrates the application of merged framework
to estimate Rn when 71% of the SGP was covered with clouds for the
MODIS-Terra overpass on 6th July, 2006 at 17:45 UTC. The strength of
the proposed approach is that it can rely solely on remote sensing data
and thus can be applied to globally. In this study we have only utilized
the MODIS data from the Terra satellite; data from the Aqua satellite
would provide an additional estimate of Rn.
5. Summary
The MODIS sensor on the Aqua and Terra satellites provides
various data products about the Earth's land surface, atmosphere,
cryosphere and ocean. The MODIS data products have large spatial
footprint as compared to sparse ground observations. The surface
energy budget plays a signicant role in landatmosphere

Fig. 11. Instantaneous estimation of net radiation (Rn) from the MODIS-Terra for all sky conditions on 24th July, 2006 at 17:35 UTC. (a) Cloud fraction from MOD06_L2 data over the
SGP; (b) estimate of Rn using clear sky algorithm (white region represents no data due to cloud cover); (c) estimate of Rn using cloudy sky algorithm for the cloud covered portion
only; and (d) estimate of Rn for all sky conditions obtained by merging (b) and (c).

G. Bisht, R.L. Bras / Remote Sensing of Environment 114 (2010) 15221534

1533

Fig. 12. Same as Fig. 11 except for the MODIS-Terra overpass on 6th July, 2006 at 17:45 UTC.

interactions, thus numerous studies have attempted to estimate the

surface energy budget or its components from the MODIS data. Such
attempts until now have been mostly limited to cloud-free days and
thus a large share of the MODIS overpasses is discarded. In this paper
we present a methodology that overcomes the restriction of cloudfree condition to estimate net radiation using the MODIS-Terra data.
We employ the MODIS cloud product to provide information about
cloud top temperature, cloud fraction, cloud emissivity, cloud optical
thickness and land surface temperature for cloud covered regions
within a MODIS overpass. A statistical regression, using ancillary
ground measurements, is applied to5-km MOD06_L2-LST in order to
obtain near-surface air and dew temperatures. In absence of ancillary
ground measurements, a similar statistical regression can be obtained
by using the MOD07_L2 product, thus presenting a framework that
can exclusively utilize remote sensing information.
Downwelling shortwave radiation is obtained as a linear combination of cloud-free and cloudy radiation weighted by cloud fraction
following the approach of Slingo (1989). The estimate of downwelling
longwave radiation has a component dependent on near-surface
conditions along with an inuence of clouds as suggested by Forman
and Margulis (2007). Upwelling shortwave and longwave radiation
uses land surface albedo data and 5-km MOD06_L2-LST data. In order
to appraise how well the estimates of Rn from the MOD06_L2 perform,
the methodology is applied over the SGP for 2006. The Rn estimates
from this study are shown to be comparable to other existing
methodologies, while apparently having an advantage of being
applicable to cloudy days. Finally, a framework to estimate Rn from
the MODIS under all sky conditions is proposed by merging the higher
resolution methodology (1-km) outlined by Bisht et al. (2005) for
clear sky pixels of the overpass and the present low resolution
methodology (5-km) for cloudy pixels. Two applications of the

proposed methodology are demonstrated for the MODIS-Terra

overpass on 6th July, 2006 and 24th July, 2006 that had 71% and
23% cloud cover for the SGP respectively. In Bisht and Bras (submitted
for publication), authors further examine the retrieval accuracy of the
present all-sky Rn methodology using data from the SURFRAD
network in U.S. which provides radiation observations at seven
locations, apart from the SGP. Additional data from the MODIS-Aqua,
along with an extension of the present framework to estimate Rn over
the Continental United States is also presented in Bisht and Bras
(submitted for publication).
Acknowledgements
This work has been supported by the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (contract NNG05GA17G), the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (contract NA06OAR4310059) and
the Martin Family Society of Fellows for Sustainability at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The authors also thank two
anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments that eventually lead
to an overall improvement of the manuscript.
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