ECOSTRESS: NASA's Next Generation Mission to Measure Evapotranspiration From the International Space Station

Joshua B. Fisher, Brian Lee, Adam J. Purdy, Gregory H. Halverson, Matthew B. Dohlen, Kerry Cawse-Nicholson, Audrey Wang, Ray G. Anderson, Bruno Aragon, M. Altaf Arain, Dennis D. Baldocchi, John M. Baker, Hélène Barral, Carl J. Bernacchi, Christian Bernhofer, Sébastien C. Biraud, Gil Bohrer, Nathaniel Brunsell, Bernard Cappelaere, Saulo Castro-ContrerasJunghwa Chun, Bryan J. Conrad, Edoardo Cremonese, Jérôme Demarty, Ankur R. Desai, Anne De Ligne, Lenka Foltýnová, Michael L. Goulden, Timothy J. Griffis, Thomas Grünwald, Mark S. Johnson, Minseok Kang, Dave Kelbe, Natalia Kowalska, Jong Hwan Lim, Ibrahim Maïnassara, Matthew F. McCabe, Justine E.C. Missik, Binayak P. Mohanty, Caitlin E. Moore, Laura Morillas, Ross Morrison, J. William Munger, Gabriela Posse, Andrew D. Richardson, Eric S. Russell, Youngryel Ryu, Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa, Marius Schmidt, Efrat Schwartz, Iain Sharp, Ladislav Šigut, Yao Tang, Glynn Hulley, Martha Anderson, Christopher Hain, Andrew French, Eric Wood, Simon Hook

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

215 Scopus citations

Abstract

The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) was launched to the International Space Station on 29 June 2018 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The primary science focus of ECOSTRESS is centered on evapotranspiration (ET), which is produced as Level-3 (L3) latent heat flux (LE) data products. These data are generated from the Level-2 land surface temperature and emissivity product (L2_LSTE), in conjunction with ancillary surface and atmospheric data. Here, we provide the first validation (Stage 1, preliminary) of the global ECOSTRESS clear-sky ET product (L3_ET_PT-JPL, Version 6.0) against LE measurements at 82 eddy covariance sites around the world. Overall, the ECOSTRESS ET product performs well against the site measurements (clear-sky instantaneous/time of overpass: r2 = 0.88; overall bias = 8%; normalized root-mean-square error, RMSE = 6%). ET uncertainty was generally consistent across climate zones, biome types, and times of day (ECOSTRESS samples the diurnal cycle), though temperate sites are overrepresented. The 70-m-high spatial resolution of ECOSTRESS improved correlations by 85%, and RMSE by 62%, relative to 1-km pixels. This paper serves as a reference for the ECOSTRESS L3 ET accuracy and Stage 1 validation status for subsequent science that follows using these data.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article numbere2019WR026058
JournalWater Resources Research
Volume56
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 1 2020

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020. The Authors.

Keywords

  • ECOSTRESS
  • eddy covariance
  • evapotranspiration
  • latent heat flux
  • satellite
  • validation

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'ECOSTRESS: NASA's Next Generation Mission to Measure Evapotranspiration From the International Space Station'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this