Daily Evaporative Stress Index for Contiguous United States at 70-Meter Resolution

ECOSTRESS instrument data from the International Space Station provides the Evaporative Stress Index (ESI), computed as the ratio of daily evapotranspiration to reference evapotranspiration. This Level 4 product covers the Conterminous United States with a 70-meter spatial resolution, tiled using a modified Military Grid Reference System. The data is produced by NASA's LPCLOUD from measurements collected since the instrument's launch in June 2018.

Use Cases

• Model agricultural drought severity by analyzing the Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) values across cropland tiles.
• Monitor vegetation stress responses by tracking daily Evapotranspiration (ET) and its uncertainty metrics over time.
• Validate hydrological and crop yield models using the high-resolution 70-meter ESI and ET data for the CONUS region.

Strengths

• Provides high spatial resolution data at 70 meters for detailed regional analysis.
• Covers the entire Conterminous United States using a systematic tiling grid of 109.8 km by 109.8 km squares.
• Data product includes separate files for Evapotranspiration Daily and its associated Uncertainty variable.

Limitations

• Contains known data acquisition gaps, including an anomaly from September to December 2018 and another in February 2020.
• Spatial coverage is limited to latitudes between 52° North and 52° South, excluding higher latitudes.
• From May 2019 to April 2023, a modified acquisition approach resulted in fill values for some thermal infrared bands.

Provenance

Source

NASA ECOSTRESS mission, data processed by LPCLOUD.

Collection Method

Derived from spaceborne thermal radiometer measurements on the International Space Station, processed using the Atmosphere Land Exchange Inverse (ALEXI) Disaggregation algorithm.

Time Range

Data collection began June 29, 2018; specific product time range is null.

Freshness

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Geography

Conterminous United States (CONUS), within global coverage between 52° N and 52° S latitudes.