Applying MODIS and landsat images for evaluating urban cool Island effect

Both MODIS and Landsat 8 provide the land surface temperature (LST) images, but their images areslightly different both in the spatial resolution and in the calculation of LST. The MODIS retrieves LST from thermalinfrared response at the spatial resolution of 1 kilometer, whereas the Landsat 8 images retrieve LST from band 10and 11 thermal infrared response with the spatial resolution of 30 meters. These differences are the focus of this paperand are evaluated in the process of finding urban cool islands (UCI). Taipei City is selected as our research area. Theheat generated from high-rise buildings and artificial impervious surfaces in Taipei results in the urban heat islands.Yet, there are also several urban parks with high-density vegetation coverage where can cool down the surfacetemperature of the city. Thus, we expect to acquire large-scale LST by multi-temporal MODIS and Landsat 8 images,considering the relationship between the green area in downtown and the spatial resolution of images, and assessinghow large the green area may result in the UCI. Finally, we also use the temperature actually measured by the groundweather station for validation, analyzing whether both of two images can be used to evaluate the UCI effect.