TROPICAL LAKE SURFACE TEMPERATURES FROM LOCALLY RECEIVED NOAA-11 AVHRR DATA - COMPARISON WITH IN-SITU MEASUREMENTS

The estimation of tropical lake surface temperature from locally recei ved NOAA AVHRR data was investigated. The applicability of published s ea surface temperature algorithms in estimating the tropical lake surf ace temperature of Lake Malawi was confirmed; the most accurate algori thm being that of McClain et al. (1985) with a root mean square deviat ion of 0.45 K. Other published algorithms tested required localised bi as correction. Newly derived algorithms showed the advantage of the tr iple window approach, with a correlation coefficient of 0.92 between t he estimated and measured temperatures.