Global Surface Albedo and Land Cover Climatology from 20-Year MODIS Data

A global surface blue-sky albedo climatology dataset derived from 20 years of MODIS satellite products via Google Earth Engine. The dataset includes snow-free albedo and land cover climatology, aggregated to 0.05° and 0.5° Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) resolutions. It was created by Aolin Jia at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Use Cases

• Parameterizing surface albedo in climate models based on the 20-year climatology.
• Analyzing global land cover changes using the aggregated MODIS MCD12Q1 IGBP and PFT classifications.
• Studying surface energy balance and radiative forcing using the blue-sky albedo data.
• Assessing spatial heterogeneity in land cover based on the calculated percentage of dominant type per aggregation group.

Strengths

• Derived from 20 years of MODIS satellite data, providing a long-term climatological baseline.
• Includes both albedo and land cover data, offering complementary environmental variables.
• Available at multiple spatial resolutions (500m, 0.05°, and 0.5°) for different modeling needs.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale analyses.

Provenance

Source

MODIS satellite products processed via Google Earth Engine.

Collection Method

Reprojection and aggregation of MODIS albedo and MCD12Q1 land cover products, with mode-finding for land cover classification.

Time Range

Based on 20 years of MODIS data (specific start and end years not provided).

Geography

Global coverage.