A method for improving the estimation of extreme air temperature by satellite

Air temperature (Ta) data obtained from meteorological stations were spatially discontinuous. Some satellite data have complete spatial coverage and strong relationships with Ta (e.g., elevation and land surface temperature). Therefore, Ta can be mapped using in situ Ta and satellite data. However, this method may have a large bias when estimating the extreme Ta. In this study, the error prediction and correction (EPC) method, incorporating Cubist machine learning algorithm, was proposed to improve the estimation of extreme Ta. The accuracy of the EPC method was compared with that of the widely used method in previous studies in east China from 2003 to 2012. The mean absolute errors (MAEs) of the estimated daily Ta using the EPC method ranged from 0.75-1.01 °C, which were 0.57-0.96 °C lower than that of the method in the literature. The biases of the estimated Ta obtained using the two methods were close to zero. However, the biases can be as high as 7.10 °C when Ta is extremely low and as low as -3.09 °C when Ta is extremely high. Compared with the method in the literature, the EPC method can reduce the MAE by 1.41 °C, root mean square error by 1.49 °C, and bias by 1.61 °C of the estimated extreme Ta. Additionally, the EPC method produced satisfactory accuracy (MAEs <0.9 °C) of the estimated heat and cold wave magnitudes. Finally, a 1 km resolution daily Ta map in east China from 2003 to 2012 was developed, which will be useful data in multiple research fields.