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Lake Surface Water Temperature
Lake surface water temperature (LSWT) describes the temperature of the lake surface and is recognised internationally as an Essential Climate Variable (ECV).
A range of satellite-derived LSWT datasets have been developed by the Earth Observation and Space Research Division at the University of Reading in recent years. These products are aimed at quantifying both the long-term (since the mid 1990s) and near-real time LSWT and LSWT uncertainty for many of Earth's lakes.
LSWT projects and datasets
ARC Lake
The primary aim of the Along-TrackScanning Radiometer (ATSR) Reprocessing for Climate: Lake Surface Water Temperature & Ice Cover (ARC-Lake) project was to generate a consistent LSWT time-series from ATSR sensors for more than 250 lakes globally from 1995 to 2012.
GloboLakes
Following on from ARC-Lake, the Global Observatory of Lake Responses to Environmental Change (GloboLakes) project builds on the developments within ARC-Lake to produce LSWT at a higher spatial resolution over a longer time-period (1995 to 2016) for around 1000 lakes from additional satellite sensors (see table below). The temperatures from the different instruments have been derived with the same algorithm and harmonised to insure consistency throughout the time period.
CGLOPS
More recently, the current Global Land Component of the Copernicus Land Service (CGLOPS) projects aims to provide both historical (since 2002) and near-real time LSWT for around 1000 lakes. Unlike ARC-Lake and GloboLakes, the production of near-real time LSWT (every 10 days with a latency of 3 days) allows accurate and up-to-date monitoring of many of the Earth’s lakes.
ESA CCI Lakes
The current European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI) project on LAKES aims to create a state-of-the-art lake-related dataset cosnsiting of the follwing thematic variables: lake surface water temperature, lake ice cover and thickness, lake water level and extent and lake water leaving reflectance. The University of Reading focus on the LSWT and the time series are from 1995 to 2022 at 1/120° resolution for 2024 lakes distributed globally.
Dataset properties and usage
The table below provides a summary of the each of the datasets arising from the projects summarised above.
| Sensors | ATSR-2, AATSR | ATSR-2, AATSR, AVHRR (MetOp-A) | AATSR, SLSTR-A | ATSR-2, AATSR, MODIS (Terra), AVHRR (MetOp-A, MetOp-B), SLSTR-A, SLSTR-B |
| Temporal coverage | 1995 - 2012 | Jun 1995 - Dec 2016 | May 2002 - Mar 2012 (AATSR) Nov 2016 - present day (SLSTR) |
Jun 1995 - Dec 2022 |
| Spatial resolution | 0.05° | 0.025° | 0.0083° (1 km) | 0.0083° (1 km) |
| Temporal resolution | daily average | daily average | dekadal (10-day) average | daily average |
| Number of lakes processed | ~250 | ~1000 | ~2024 | ~2024 |
| Latest version | v3.0 | v4.0 | v2.1 | |
| Intended usage | Research (e.g. time-series analysis) | Research (e.g. time-series analysis) | Operational activities (e.g. monitoring) and research (e.g. time-series analysis) | Research (e.g. time-series analysis) |