Detection of finescale climatic features from satellites and implications for agricultural planning

A method that enables the classification of topoclimatic regions from satellite remote sensing that have implications for ecology, agriculture, and epidemiology of vector-borne diseases, was examined. The time series of Earth-observing satellites (EOS) data was analyzed and the products of the analysis were used in order to identify topoclimatic features and their locations. The freely available preprocessed 8-day average clear-sky Land Surface Temperature (LST) product from the MODerate resolution imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's TERRA satellite was used. A 10-yr time series (2000-09) of the LST product over northern Israel, along the East Mediterranean coast, and applied Temporal Fourier Analysis (TFA) to these time series was constructed. Predicting the timing of pest population expansion depends on the climate spatial variability induced by local topography, and can be used to time scouting efforts and pesticide applications.