LST is different than temperature based meteorological stations. but if there is no way, you have to calibrate it in the first.

In order to validate the accuracy of surface temperature product from Modis thermal band we should compare it with climate station measured temperatures. In general of course they are not the same and there is a certain rate of error which can reach sometime more than 30% (accuracy is less than 70 %). Several factors plays crucial role in increasing or decreasing the errors:

1- Type of Land cover

2- Land topography

3- the coarse resolution of the thermal band (1 km)

4- the reliability of the atmospheric correction method

There is a study with main objective is to explore the possibility of retrieving high-resolution Tair

from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land surface temperature (LST)

products, covering complex terrain in Northeast China. (see attached file) says the following:

The results indicated that the optimal models could estimate the Tmax, Tmin, and Tmean with relatively

high accuracies (Model Efficiency > 0.90). Both LST and day length (DL) predictors were important in

estimating Tmax (SRCs: daytime LST = 0.53, DL = 0.35), Tmin (SRCs: nighttime LST = 0.74, DL = 0.23),

and Tmean (SRCs: nighttime LST = 0.72, DL = 0.28). Models predicting Tmin and Tmean had better

performance than the one predicting Tmax. Nighttime LST was better at predicting Tmin and Tmean

than daytime LST data at predicting Tmax.

Best regards

The accuracy of MODIS LST data depends upon the correction levels, study scale, and application type. If you want to use these data for yearly-anomalies studies, I think MOD11A2 products are appropriate. But for extracting surface temperature, you should test their accuracy by ground meteorological data.

Thank you for your answers. Actually, I need data about air temperature for mountain areas where there are no meteorological stations. Interpolation data is suspicious for use because of the large distance of meteorological stations (usually at 30-40 km). I made own test with the comparison of MODIS with meteorological stations and received significant seasonal deviations in the cities (where the meteostations usually are), but it is interesting that the annual averages are pretty close. However, I am preparing a paper on this topic so I will announce it soon. Thank you once again.