LEOLSTCMG30: Monthly Global Land Surface Temperature Grids from MODIS and VIIRS

NASA's MEaSUREs LEOLSTCMG30 version 1 product provides Land Surface Temperature derived from MODIS and VIIRS satellite instruments. The dataset includes global monthly LST data on 0.25, 0.5, and 1-degree climate grids from 2002 to 2020, accompanied by per-pixel uncertainty estimates for day and night. A known issue in v001 is that nighttime LST error estimates were erroneously filled with zero values.

Use Cases

• Modeling long-term climate trends based on monthly global land surface temperature grids.
• Analyzing diurnal temperature variations based on separate day and night LST estimates.
• Assessing spatial patterns of surface heating using data on multiple climate grid resolutions (0.25, 0.5, 1 degree).
• Validating other land surface models using the well-characterized per-pixel uncertainties mentioned in the description.

Strengths

• Data spans a long temporal range from 2002 to 2020.
• Provides data on three different climate grid resolutions (0.25, 0.5, and 1 degree).
• Includes separate LST and error estimates for both day and night observations.

Limitations

• Nighttime LST error estimates in v001 are erroneously filled with zero values and should not be used for scientific analysis.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Regridded from monthly LST Climate Modeling Grid products from MODIS (MYD21C3) and VIIRS (VNP21C3) instruments.

Time Range

2002 to 2020

Geography

Global