MODIS/Terra Land Surface Temperature/3-Band Emissivity Daily L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG V061

MODIS Collection 6.1's MOD21C1 product provides daily global land surface temperature and emissivity estimates on a 0.05-degree Climate Modeling Grid. The algorithm uses a physics-based Temperature/Emissivity Separation technique with three thermal infrared bands, differing from the split-window method used in heritage products. This dataset is produced by NASA from daytime satellite observations and includes seven science datasets such as LST, quality control, three emissivity bands, view zenith angle, and observation time.

Use Cases

• Modeling climate change impacts based on daily global land surface temperature data.
• Analyzing surface emissivity properties for energy budget studies based on the three provided emissivity bands.
• Monitoring thermal anomalies like fires or volcanic activity using the physics-based retrieval algorithm.
• Validating and comparing climate models using the 0.05-degree Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) structure.
• Studying diurnal and seasonal land surface temperature patterns from the daily time-series data.

Strengths

• Algorithm uses a physics-based Temperature/Emissivity Separation (TES) technique, dynamically retrieving both LST and spectral emissivity.
• Product is generated daily on a global 0.05-degree (approximately 5.6 km) Climate Modeling Grid.
• Includes seven Science Datasets (SDS) covering LST, quality control, three emissivity bands, view zenith angle, and observation time.
• Dataset incorporates an improved Water Vapor Scaling atmospheric correction scheme for stability in warm, humid conditions.

Limitations

• Known issue: Version 6.1 products may contain more extreme high-temperature outliers, especially over desert regions, requiring user-applied Quality Control filtering.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for specific analytical needs.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Produced daily from daytime Level 2 Gridded (L2G) intermediate LST products mapped onto a sinusoidal MODIS grid, with final values averaged from cloud-free observations.

Time Range

Daily coverage.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 00:15:46.872688; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global coverage.