SENSE-GDD: A Satellite-Derived Temperature Monitoring Service to Provide Growing Degree Days

A new satellite-enabled interoperable service has been developed to provide high spatiotemporal and continuous time series of Growing Degree Days (GDDs) at the field. The GDDs are calculated from MSG-SEVIRI data acquired by the EUMETCast station operated by IAASARS/NOA and downscaled on-the-fly to increase the initial coarse spatial resolution from the original 4-5 km to 1 km. The performance of the new service SENSE-GDD, in deriving reliable GDD timeseries at dates very close to key phenological stages, is assessed using in situ air temperature measurements from weather stations installed in Gerovassiliou Estate vineyard at Epanomi (Northern Greece) and an apple orchard at Agia (Central Greece). Budburst, pollination, and the start of veraison are selected as key phenological stages for the vineyards, whilst budburst and pollination for the apple orchard. The assessment shows that SENSE-GDD provided uninterrupted accurate measurements in both crop types. A distinct feature is that the proposed service can support decisions in non-instrumented crop fields in a cost-effective way, paving the way for its extended operational use in agriculture.