Lake Surface Water Temperature ARC-Lake v3 (1995-2012)

The dataset consists of satellite observations of Lake Surface Water Temperature (LSWT) and Lake Ice Cover (LIC) for major lakes, globally, from 1995 to 2012. The dataset was generated within the European Space Agency (ESA) ‘ATSR Reprocessing for Climate: Lake Surface Water Temperature & Ice Cover’ (ARC-Lake) project in 2014 and data were/are available for downloading at www.laketemp.net. The project aimed to use the exceptional radiometric qualities and dual-view scanning capability of the ATSRs to derive observations of LSWT contained in this dataset. This can be considered to be a major contribution to monitoring of lakes within the Global Climate Observing System, because the ATSRs are in principle capable of being a highly accurate source of information on LSWTs on a systematic global basis, in comparison to in situ measurements which may not be avaialable. The method is based on surface water temperature retrieval from the thermal channels using the following instruments: ATRS2 on the ERS-2 platform and AATSR on the Envisat platform. LSWT and LIC observations have potential environmental and meteorological applications for inland water management and numerical weather prediction (NWP). They also offer the basis of a long term record of the physical state of lakes.