ASTER L2 Surface Emissivity: Terra Satellite Thermal Infrared Land Measurements

Version 4 of the ASTER Surface Emissivity product applies an enhanced atmospheric correction using MERRA-2 data to improve precision. The product provides per-pixel emissivity measurements over land from the Terra satellite's five Thermal Infrared bands at 90-meter resolution. It is produced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and was last updated in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Model land surface energy budgets based on per-pixel thermal infrared emissivity measurements.
• Monitor changes in surface composition based on emissivity data acquired during day or night.
• Validate or improve atmospheric correction algorithms based on the described use of MERRA-2 and GDAS data.
• Assess radiometric calibration accuracy based on the application of RCC V5 coefficients.

Strengths

• Version 4 uses MERRA-2 data for atmospheric parameters, improving precision of emissivity calculations.
• Includes fallback mechanisms with GDAS and climatology data to ensure continuous processing.
• Applies Radiometric Calibration Coefficient Version 5 (RCC V5) to improve radiometric accuracy.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Produced using the Temperature/Emissivity Separation (TES) algorithm on data from the Terra satellite's ASTER instrument.

Time Range

Acquired during the day or night; specific temporal coverage is not provided.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 09:28:08.743206; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Measurements generated over land; specific spatial coverage is not provided.