Global 70-Meter Evapotranspiration and Soil Moisture Estimates from ECOSTRESS

ECOSTRESS Tiled Evapotranspiration Instantaneous and Daytime L3 Global 70 m V002 provides 12 layers of data on plant water use, including ETdaily, ETinstUncertainty, and soil moisture evaporation. The dataset is produced by the ECOSTRESS instrument on the International Space Station and covers latitudes between 52° N and 52° S. Data acquisition began in 2018, with known operational anomalies and recovery periods detailed in the product documentation.

Use Cases

• Model crop water stress by analyzing the PTJPLSMsoil and PTJPLSMcanopy layers against local weather data.
• Validate global evapotranspiration models using the ETdaily and MOD16inst layers across different biomes.
• Assess uncertainty in instantaneous evapotranspiration measurements using the ETinstUncertainty band for error propagation in hydrological studies.
• Mask out non-land areas in analysis by applying the provided cloud mask and water mask layers.

Strengths

• 12 distinct data layers including evapotranspiration, uncertainty, and component fluxes
• 70-meter spatial resolution for detailed landscape analysis
• Global coverage between 52° N and 52° S latitudes

Limitations

• Contains data acquisition gaps and instrument anomalies from 2018-2023, leading to periods of fill values
• Spatial coverage is limited to the orbital path of the International Space Station, not a continuous global snapshot
• Temporal resolution is dependent on ISS overpasses, not daily for all locations

Provenance

Source

NASA LPCLOUD via the ECOSTRESS mission on the International Space Station

Collection Method

Derived from thermal radiometer measurements using the Priestley-Taylor formula (PT-JPL model)

Time Range

Data acquisition began June 2018; ongoing with noted operational periods

Freshness

null

Geography

Global coverage between 52° North and 52° South latitude