LST validation station at the Wind Mast in Gobabeb, Namibia

Gobabeb LST validation station lies about 2 km north-east of Gobabeb Training & Research Centre in the Namib Desert, Namibia. The validation station is located on large gravel plains (several thousand km2), which are covered by a highly homogeneous mixture of gravel, sand and sparse desiccated grass. The pointing of the radiometers to the assumed surface end-members has not been changed since December 2007.

There is a sharp transition between the vast Namib sand sea with its up to 300 m high dunes and the gravel plains: this natural boundary is maintained by irregular flows of the ephemeral Kuiseb River (a few days every other year), which wash the advancing sand into the South Atlantic Ocean. Due to the hyper-arid desert climate, the site is spatially and temporally highly stable and, therefore, ideal for long-term validation of satellite products. The long-term average annual temperature at Gobabeb is 21.1°C whereas the average annual precipitation is less than 100 mm and highly variable. Therefore, fog is of special importance for the water balance of the Namib. Continuous in-situ measurements from Gobabeb are available since the beginning of 2008 and the homogeneity of the site was investigated with several field campaigns. The scatterplot below shows LST derived by LSA SAF from MSG SEVIRI data against in situ LST for Gobabeb station for September 2012.

LSA SAF LST vs. in situ LST at Gobabeb

 

Geographical location and satellite view of the station

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