Global 70-Meter Evapotranspiration Estimates from ECOSTRESS Space Station Instrument

ECOSTRESS Gridded Evapotranspiration L3 Global 70 m V002 provides instantaneous and daytime estimates of plant water use. The dataset is produced by NASA's ECOSTRESS mission on the International Space Station, measuring between 52° N and 52° S latitudes. It contains 12 data layers, including ETdaily and ETinstUncertainty, projected to a 0.0006° global grid.

Use Cases

• Modeling daily water loss (ETdaily) from vegetation canopies to assess drought impact on ecosystems.
• Comparing instantaneous evapotranspiration algorithms (PTJPLSMinst, STICinst, MOD16inst, BESSinst) for method validation.
• Partitioning total evapotranspiration into canopy (STICcanopy, PTJPLSMcanopy), interception (PTJPLSMinterception), and soil (PTJPLSMsoil) components for process studies.
• Filtering low-quality observations using the provided cloud mask and water mask layers for analysis.
• Quantifying uncertainty in evapotranspiration estimates using the ETinstUncertainty layer for error propagation.

Strengths

• Spatial resolution of 70 meters provides detailed local-scale mapping.
• Contains 12 distinct data layers for comprehensive evapotranspiration analysis.
• Global coverage between 52° N and 52° S latitudes captures diverse biomes.

Limitations

• Data acquisition experienced gaps and anomalies in 2018-2019 and 2020, creating temporal inconsistencies.
• Some scenes are affected by solar array obstructions from the ISS, impacting pixel quality.
• The dataset uses fill values for certain thermal bands during periods of 3-band acquisition mode.

Provenance

Source

NASA ECOSTRESS mission, processed by LPCLOUD.

Collection Method

Mosaicked from L3 tiled product (ECO_L3T_JET) and projected to a globally snapped grid using the Priestley-Taylor formula.

Time Range

Acquisitions began after instrument launch on June 29, 2018.

Freshness

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Geography

Global coverage between 52 degrees North and 52 degrees South latitude.