 The Landsat 8 satellite successfully launched with two thermal infrared bands on February 11, 2013, providing another opportunity for remote sensing of land surface temperature, LST. However, calibration notices issued by the USGS indicated that data from the Landsat 8 thermal infrared sensor, TIRS, band 11 had large uncertainty and suggested using TIRS band 10 data as a single spectral band for LST estimation. To address this issue, researchers developed an improved model window IMW algorithm for LST retrieval from the Landsat 8 TIRS band 10 data. Three essential parameters, ground emissivity, atmospheric transmittance and effective mean atmospheric temperature, were needed for the IMW algorithm to retrieve LST. Additionally, a new method was proposed to estimate the parameter of effective mean atmospheric temperature from local meteorological data. Other two essential parameters could be both estimated through the so-called land cover approach. Sensitivity analysis conducted for the IMW algorithm revealed that the possible error in estimating the required atmospheric water vapor content had the most significant impact on the.