Location

‘Rust mijn Ziel’ (RMZ) farm LST validation was located on a plateau in the Kalahari semi-desert about 140 km south-east from Windhuk. In February 2011 the station was relocated to farm 'Heimat', which has quite similar land scape and vegetation consisting mainly of patchy desiccated grass dotted with bushes and isolated camel thorn trees. RMZ farm raises livestock (cattle & sheep) and is also used for hunting game (mainly springbok and Oryx). The farm has a size of about 50 km² but the land cover (‘Kalahari bush’) and land use in a wide area (thousands of km²) around it is identical.

Climate

The Kalahari is characterised by a hot and arid climate, which exhibits a natural seasonality: there is a small rainy season with little rain (September to November) and a big rainy season (January and March) with possible flooding. Outside the big rainy season the Kalahari bush is dry and the grass is quickly desiccated. In winter the high elevation of the station frequently results in cold temperatures well below freezing point. Due to the station's high elevation (1450 m a.s.l.) the water vapour column between the surface and a satellite is quite small (i.e. the half-height value w.r.t. sea level is 2 km): when not accounted for, this may cause significant error in satellite products.

Instrumentation and measurements

‘Rust mijn Ziel’ (RMZ) farm LST validation station operated between March 2009 and February 2011 and was subsequently moved to the nearby farm 'Heimat'.