Global Daily Land Parameters from AMSR-E and AMSR2 Satellites

Daily global land surface parameters are derived from the NASA Aqua AMSR-E and JAXA GCOM-W1 AMSR2 satellite instruments. The dataset includes air surface temperature, fractional open water cover, vegetation optical depth, surface volumetric soil moisture, and total column precipitable water vapor. Retrievals are for non-precipitating, non-snow, and non-ice covered land conditions.

Use Cases

• Modeling surface energy fluxes using daily air surface temperature and soil moisture columns.
• Monitoring drought and agricultural water stress via surface volumetric soil moisture estimates.
• Analyzing vegetation dynamics and biomass changes with vegetation optical depth data.
• Assessing atmospheric humidity and its role in weather systems using total column precipitable water vapor.
• Studying surface water extent and changes in wetlands from fractional open water cover estimates.

Strengths

• Provides a multi-parameter suite from two major satellite instruments, AMSR-E and AMSR2.
• Offers global daily coverage for land surfaces under specific retrieval conditions.
• Data is hosted by authoritative organizations, NASA and JAXA, indicating reliability.

Limitations

• Row count, file size, and exact column names are not specified in the provided metadata.
• Retrievals exclude precipitating, snow-covered, and ice-covered land conditions, limiting all-weather analysis.
• There is a conflict in the last updated date between Data.gov (2026-03-13) and NASA Earthdata (2023-12-31).

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Collection Method

Satellite-retrieved geophysical parameters from the AMSR-E instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite and the AMSR2 sensor on JAXA's GCOM-W1 satellite.

Time Range

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Freshness

2026-03 13 03:18:59.086174

Geography

Global land coverage.