Earthdata Forum

We recently received a question from a user that we think the user community would be interested in.

"Hi~ I used ECO2LSTE 001 LST, Cloud Mask and followed the tutorial to get the LST. Most of the results are reasonable, but some results showed that the water's lst is much higher than the ground, and this phenomenon appeared in several regions. Could you please give me some advice to solve the problem that the lst result seem inverted? Thanks."

This is a normal occurrence between water and land temperatures and is seen across a variety of data sources.

Please see the FAQ page to learn more about this issue: https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/centers/lp-daac/learn#why-do-some-waterbodies-appear-to-be-warmer-than-land

Why do some waterbodies appear to be warmer than land?

Some images taken during nighttime can show higher temperature over waterbodies than surrounding land surfaces and images taken during daytime show lower temperature than surrounding land surfaces.

You can read more about what causes this here: https://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/ocean-observation/understanding-climate/air-and-water/#:~:text=Physical%20Properties%20of%20Water&text=Solar%20heat%20absorbed%20by%20bodies,climates%20(like%20San%20Francisco).