A Functional Form for the Diurnal Variation of Lake Surface Temperature on Lake Hartwell, Northwestern South Carolina

Satellite measurements of water surface temperature can benefit several environmental applications such as predictions of lake evaporation, meteorological forecasts, and predictions of lake overturning events, among others. Limitations on the temporal resolution of satellite measurements can restrict these improvements. A model of the diurnal variation in lake surface temperature could potentially increase the effective temporal resolution of satellite measurements of surface temperature, thereby enhancing the utility of these measurements in the above applications. As a step in this direction, herein a one-dimensional thermal model of a lake is used in combination with surface temperature measurements from the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer instrument aboard the Aqua and Terra satellites, along with ambient atmospheric conditions from local weather stations, to calculate the diurnal surface temperature variation for Lake Hartwell in South Carolina. The calculated solutions are used to obtain a functional form for the diurnal surface temperature variation of this lake, a result which has not been obtained heretofore. This functional form was obtained by averaging over several years worth of data and, therefore, represents the diurnal variation of surface temperature of the average day. Accordingly, attempts to use this averaged function to predict surface temperature in between satellite overpasses on any given day did not perform well due to day-to-day variations in cloud cover, wind speed, and other factors. It is possible that use of this averaged function combined with daily meteorological data may enable better performance.