Integration of Multisource Data to Estimate Downward Longwave Radiation Based on Deep Neural Networks

Downward longwave radiation (DLR) at the surface is a key variable of interest in fields, such as hydrology and climate research. However, existing DLR estimation methods and DLR products are still problematic in terms of both accuracy and spatiotemporal resolution. In this article, we propose a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN)-based method to estimate hourly DLR at 5-km spatial resolution from top of atmosphere (TOA) brightness temperature (BT) of the Himawari-8/Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) thermal channels, combined with near-surface air temperature and dew point temperature of ERA5 and elevation data. Validation results show that the DCNN-based method outperforms popular random forest and multilayer perceptron-based methods and that our proposed scheme integrating multisource data outperforms that only using remote sensing TOA observations or surface meteorological data. Compared with state-of-the-art CERES-SYN and ERA5-land DLR products, the estimated DLR by our proposed DCNN-based method with physical multisource inputs has higher spatiotemporal resolution and accuracy, with correlation coefficient (CC) of 0.95, root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 17.2 W/m
²
, and mean bias error (MBE) of −0.8 W/m
²
in the testing period on the Tibetan Plateau.