USING REMOTELY SENSED DATA TO ESTIMATE THE SURFACE HEAT FLUXES OVER TAIWAN'S CHAIYI PLAIN

Traditionally, surface energy fluxes are obtained by model simulations or empirical equations with auxiliary meteorological data. These methods may not effectively represent the surface heat fluxes in a regional scale due to scene variability. On the other hand, remote sensing has the advantage to acquire data of a large area in an instantaneous view. The remotely sensed data can be further used to retrieve surface radiation and heat fluxes over a large area. In this study, the airborne and satellite images in conjunction with meteorological data and ground observations were used to estimate the surface heat fluxes over Taiwan's Chaiyi Plain. The results indicate that surface heat fluxes can be properly determined from both airborne and satellite images. The correlation coefficient of surface heat fluxes with in situ corresponding observations is over 0.60. We also observe that the remotely sensed data can efficiently provide a long term monitoring of surface heat fluxes over Taiwan's Chaiyi Plain.