MODIS/Aqua MYD11C2 V006: Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity 8-Day Global Composite

MYD11C2 Version 6 provides 8-day composite Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity (LST&E) data on a global 0.05-degree Climate Modeling Grid. Each global granule consists of 17 layers, including daytime and nighttime LSTs, quality assessments, observation times, and emissivity values for six MODIS bands. The product was decommissioned on July 31, 2023, with users directed to the updated Version 6.1.

Use Cases

• Monitoring urban heat island effects using 8-day composite land surface temperature layers.
• Analyzing surface energy balance and emissivity patterns from six specific MODIS thermal bands (20, 22, 23, 29, 31, 32).
• Validating climate model outputs against global, gridded observations of land surface temperature.
• Tracking seasonal and interannual land surface temperature trends using the 8-day compositing period.

Strengths

• Provides global coverage on a consistent 0.05-degree grid with 7,200 columns and 3,600 rows.
• Contains 17 scientifically validated layers, including quality control and observation geometry.
• Algorithm improvements over previous versions, such as removal of cloud-contaminated LSTs and updated emissivity coefficients.

Limitations

• Dataset is decommissioned (as of July 31, 2023), indicating it is not the current operational version.
• Column-level metadata is not provided in the available sources, limiting precise understanding of data structure.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates (2026 vs. 2023) across platform entries create uncertainty about metadata freshness.

Provenance

Source

NASA/MODIS Aqua satellite, processed by LPCLOUD.

Collection Method

Derived by compositing and averaging values from eight corresponding MYD11C1 daily files.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated dates conflict: one source lists 2026-04-10, another lists 2023-02-25. The dataset itself was decommissioned on 2023-07-31.

Geography

Global coverage on a 0.05-degree latitude/longitude grid.