Landsat 8 Thermal Band Precision Assessment in Measuring the Arabian Gulf's Northwest Sea Surface Temperature

Abstract

One of the most significant fields for remote sensing applications is physical oceanography research. Early methods for thermal mapping of the seas and oceans included using sensors mounted on buoys. Through the use of thermal sensors mounted on Earth observation satellites, remote sensing now offers more progressive techniques to extract the sea surface temperature (SST) values as a continuous raster model for all water bodies. Landsat 8's TIRS sensor must have a thermal band so that the SST can be extracted with a 100 m2 spatial resolution. The precision of two thermal bands from Landsat 8 (bands 10 and 11) for SST appreciation in waters northwest of the Arabian Gulf was confirmed by the current study.  Using thermal images and comparing them with the actual measured temperatures of selected stations taken in December 2014 and January 2022. This was accomplished using the "Brightness Temperature" function provided by ENVI 5.3 for determining the surface temperature. By accounting for root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error rate (MAPE), Landsat 8's precision for SST monitoring in waters northwest of the Arabian Gulf was confirmed. The thermal band 10's accuracy was ±1.72 (1.79%), while the precision of thermal band 11 was ±2.37 (2.49%) in 2014, with a difference of ± 0.65 (0.7%). In 2022, it was found that the precision of thermal band 10 was ± 1.7 (2.37%), and the precision of thermal band 11 was ± 2.25 (3.13%), with a difference of ± 0.55 (0.76%).Wherefore, the outputs of the current study show that Landsat 8's thermal band 10 is more precise than thermal band 11 at measuring the sea surface temperature of water northwest of the Arabian Gulf.