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Accurate estimations of daily mean land surface temperature (LST) are important for investigating the urban heat island effect, land-atmosphere energy exchanges, and global climate change. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors can provide up to four instantaneous LSTs of a single day across the world. However, numerous studies, such as those on climate change and hydrology, require the input of daily mean LSTs rather than instantaneous value. In this paper, we propose a practical method to estimate the daily mean LST using instantaneous LST products derived from MODIS. Based on the in situ LST measurements collected from 235 sites distributed globally, multiple linear regressions of two to four valid instantaneous LSTs at different MODIS observations moments (at least one daytime and one nighttime observations) can provide reliable estimates of daily mean LSTs under all-weather conditions with a root mean square error (RMSE) of less than 1.60 K. In addition, the conditions of clouds would affect the estimation accuracy of daily mean LST to a certain extent. Subsequently, an algorithm is proposed to produce the most complete coverage of daily mean LSTs from instantaneous LST products derived from MODIS. 2Validation results with in situ measurements show that the daily mean LSTs estimated from the MOD11A1 and MYD11A1 products are similar to the daily mean of the in situ LST, with an RMSE of 2.17 K. Furthermore, the daily mean LST derived from MODIS data is successfully applied to calculate the global annual cycle parameters (ACPs) in the annual temperature cycle (ATC) model. The results of this study show that the daily mean LST can be retrieved accurately from combinations of daytime and nighttime LSTs derived from MODIS. We expect that our findings will be useful for various applications involving global LST trend analysis and climate change.

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