Daily Global Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity from MODIS Aqua

Collection 6.1 of MODIS Aqua data provides daily global land surface temperature and three-band emissivity estimates using a physics-based algorithm. The Level 3 product averages daytime observations from the MYD21 sensor, applying quality thresholds like a 15% observation coverage minimum. It is produced by LPCLOUD for NASA's Earthdata platform.

Use Cases

• Analyze daily LST trends and anomalies using the calculated LST Science Dataset (SDS).
• Model surface energy fluxes by incorporating the three emissivity band values (bands 29, 31, 32).
• Filter data quality by applying the provided Quality Control (QC) flags to remove contaminated pixels.
• Study diurnal thermal patterns by combining the time of observation SDS with LST values.
• Assess retrieval view geometry effects on temperature estimates using the view zenith angle SDS.

Strengths

• Algorithm uses a physics-based Temperature/Emissivity Separation (TES) technique for simultaneous retrieval.
• Product incorporates an improved Water Vapor Scaling atmospheric correction for stability in humid conditions.
• Daily global coverage at 0.05-degree resolution provides consistent spatial and temporal data.

Limitations

• Contains known extreme high temperature outliers, especially over desert regions like the Sahara.
• Users must manually apply QC filtering to remove bad values, as contaminated pixels are not automatically flagged.
• Retrieval accuracy can be negatively impacted by undetected cloud and dust, requiring additional error analysis.

Provenance

Source

NASA Earthdata, LPCLOUD

Collection Method

Produced from daytime Level 2 Gridded (L2G) intermediate LST products of the MODIS Aqua (MYD21) sensor.

Freshness

Daily

Geography

Global