Spatio-Temporal Statistical Sequential Analysis for Temperature Change Detection in Satellite Imagery

The analysis of remote sensing data enables us to detect changes and monitor land surface temperature (LST). However, analysis of times series data poses some challenges, including weather conditions, seasonality and noise, that limit the effectiveness of change detection algorithms. While existing algorithms perform relatively well for detecting abrupt transitions, reliable detection of gradual changes is more difficult. In this paper, we formulate the problem of spatiotemporal LST detection as a statistical sequential change detection problem. LST images are modeled as stochastic processes, with temperature changes reflected as changes in the parameters (i.e., mean) of the process. A generalized likelihood ratio test is used to detect these changes and estimate the exact time/space where they occur. To minimize processing time and memory requirements, we represent LST images by their reduced dimensionality using direct cosine transformation followed by principal component analysis. Statistical sequential analysis is used to provide a unified mathematical framework for the detection of both abrupt and gradual changes in LST observations of Bridgeton Missouri landfill over 17 years.