Articles | Volume 10, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-727-2018
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-10-727-2018
11 Apr 2018
 | 11 Apr 2018

LakeSST: Lake Skin Surface Temperature in French inland water bodies for 1999–2016 from Landsat archives

Jordi Prats, Nathalie Reynaud, Delphine Rebière, Tiphaine Peroux, Thierry Tormos, and Pierre-Alain Danis

Abstract. The spatial and temporal coverage of the Landsat satellite imagery make it an ideal resource for the monitoring of water temperature over large territories at a moderate spatial and temporal scale at a low cost. We used Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 archive images to create the Lake Skin Surface Temperature (LakeSST) data set, which contains skin water surface temperature data for 442 French water bodies (natural lakes, reservoirs, ponds, gravel pit lakes and quarry lakes) for the period 1999–2016. We assessed the quality of the satellite temperature measurements by comparing them to in situ measurements and taking into account the cool skin and warm layer effects. To estimate these effects and to investigate the theoretical differences between the freshwater and seawater cases, we adapted the COARE 3.0 algorithm to the freshwater environment. We also estimated the warm layer effect using in situ data. At the reservoir of Bimont, the estimated cool skin effect was about −0.3 and −0.6 °C most of time, while the warm layer effect at 0.55 m was negligible on average, but could occasionally attain several degrees, and a cool layer was often observed in the night. The overall RMSE of the satellite-derived temperature measurements was about 1.2 °C, similar to other applications of satellite images to estimate freshwater surface temperatures. The LakeSST data can be used for studies on the temporal evolution of lake water temperature and for geographical studies of temperature patterns. The LakeSST data are available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1193745.

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Short summary
Satellites provide useful data to study environmental geographic patterns and long-term trends. We used thermal measurements made by the satellites Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 to create the LakeSST data set. It contains surface temperature data for 442 French water bodies (natural lakes, reservoirs, ponds, gravel pit lakes and quarry lakes) for 1999–2016. This data, with an accuracy of about 1.2 ºC, will allow a better monitoring and study of the thermal behaviour of freshwater bodies.