Introducing the Most Appropriate Method to Extract Land Surface Temperature Using Landsat 8 Satellite Images in Karaj Metropolitan

Temperature is one of the most significant climatic parameters and is among the main factors affecting urban planning. It is a significant determinant of the dedicated facility in the cities and can even determine the urban structure, shape and texture. Land Surface Temperature is a key indicator for energy balance at the Earth and can be used as an input for models of climate change, Urban Heat Islands, etc. The Land Surface Temperature in Metropolitan is higher than the surrounding area and this phenomenon called the Urban Heat Island. Karaj metropolitan is the third largest city and the second host city of Iran. Given this position, it is necessary to require to check the temperature in this metropolitan more than ever. In this study, the Land Surface Temperature of the Karaj Metropolitan was extracted by using Landsat8 images (4 images) in years of 2013 and 2014. Methods used to extract the Land Surface Temperature include: Mono Window, SEBAL (Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land), Stephan-Boltzmann, Single-Channel (developed by Munoz and Sobrino, 2003), Single-Channel (developed by Munoz et al, 2014), Split Window and Landsat Project Science Office. All used methods were compared by using Mean Absolute Error (MAE) indices and finally, the best method was chosen by its proximity to ground data. Results showed that the best method is SEBAL (Band 11) with the MAE equal to 7.98. In general, band 11 of Landsat 8 compared to band 10 has produced more reliable results for extracting Land Surface Temperature. Further analysis of the different dates indicated that the images of the second half of the year produced more accurate and reliable results compared to the first half of the year.