ECOSTRESS Global 70-Meter Air Temperature and Humidity Estimates

ECOSTRESS Gridded Downscaled Meteorology Instantaneous L3 Global 70 m V002 provides near-surface air temperature and relative humidity at a 70-meter spatial resolution. The data is derived from the ECOSTRESS instrument on the International Space Station, launched in June 2018, and processed by LPCLOUD. It covers global land areas between 52° N and 52° S latitudes.

Use Cases

• Modeling plant evapotranspiration by correlating the near-surface air temperature (Ta) and relative humidity (RH) layers with vegetation indices.
• Assessing regional drought stress by analyzing spatial patterns in the instantaneous Ta estimates across agricultural zones.
• Validating and downscaling coarser climate model outputs using the 70-meter resolution Ta and RH layers as a benchmark.
• Studying urban heat island effects by examining the Ta layer over built-up areas compared to surrounding vegetation, identifiable via the water mask.

Strengths

• High spatial resolution of 70 meters for detailed environmental analysis.
• Contains four specific data layers: air temperature, relative humidity, cloud mask, and water mask.
• Global coverage between 52° N and 52° S latitudes.

Limitations

• Contains known data acquisition gaps, including a period from 2019 to 2023 where only 3 of 5 thermal bands were downloaded.
• Temporal coverage is discontinuous due to instrument anomalies in 2018, 2019, and 2020.
• Data is limited to instantaneous estimates, not continuous time series.

Provenance

Source

NASA ECOSTRESS mission, data processed by LPCLOUD.

Collection Method

Downscaled using linear regression with predictor variables from up-sampled surface temperature, NDVI, and albedo, bias-corrected with GEOS-5 FP data.

Time Range

Data collection began after instrument launch on June 29, 2018.

Freshness

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Geography

Global land coverage between 52° North and 52° South latitude.