Daily Global Aerosol Optical Depth at 1km Resolution

MODIS Near Real Time data provides daily global land aerosol optical depth measurements at a 1-kilometer pixel resolution. The dataset is produced by combining observations from NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites using the MAIAC algorithm. It is generated daily by the LANCEMODIS organization.

Use Cases

• Modeling particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations by correlating aerosol optical depth with ground station measurements.
• Tracking wildfire smoke plumes and volcanic ash dispersion over time using the daily temporal resolution.
• Analyzing seasonal and interannual trends in atmospheric aerosol loading from the global 1km grid.
• Assimilating aerosol optical depth observations into atmospheric chemistry models to improve forecast accuracy.

Strengths

• Daily temporal resolution enables tracking of rapid atmospheric events.
• Global spatial coverage at a 1-kilometer pixel scale provides detailed spatial analysis.

Limitations

• Product accuracy can be reduced over bright surfaces like snow, deserts, and coastlines.
• Data is limited to land surfaces, with no aerosol retrieval over open ocean.

Provenance

Source

NASA Earthdata, LANCEMODIS.

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing data from MODIS instruments on Terra and Aqua satellites, processed with the MAIAC algorithm.

Freshness

Near Real Time (NRT), indicating daily production with minimal latency.

Geography

Global land coverage.