MODIS Terra Daily Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity at 1km Resolution

MODIS/Terra Land Surface Temperature/3-Band Emissivity Daily L3 Global 1km SIN Grid Day V061 provides daily global land surface temperature and emissivity estimates. The MOD21 algorithm from NASA's LPCLOUD uses a physics-based Temperature/Emissivity Separation technique on MODIS thermal infrared bands. Data is produced daily at a 1,000-meter spatial resolution on a sinusoidal grid.

Use Cases

• Model urban heat island intensity by analyzing LST values over metropolitan areas.
• Monitor drought conditions and soil moisture indirectly through daily LST anomalies.
• Detect thermal anomalies like wildfires or volcanic activity using extreme high temperature values in the LST field.
• Validate and improve land surface models by comparing simulated temperatures with the retrieved LST and emissivity bands 29, 31, and 32.
• Study surface energy fluxes by combining LST with the provided view zenith angle and time of observation data.

Strengths

• Global daily coverage at a consistent 1,000-meter spatial resolution.
• Algorithm simultaneously retrieves both land surface temperature and spectral emissivity from three MODIS bands.
• Product includes seven Science Datasets (SDS layers) such as quality control, three emissivity bands, view zenith angle, and observation time.

Limitations

• Known increase in extreme high temperature outliers in Version 6.1, especially over desert regions, requiring user-applied QC filtering.
• Atmospheric contamination from undetected cloud and dust can negatively impact retrieval accuracy.
• Daily observations for a grid cell require an observation coverage greater than 15%, potentially missing data in persistently cloudy regions.

Provenance

Source

NASA LPCLOUD, MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite.

Collection Method

Produced from daytime Level 2 Gridded (L2G) intermediate products using the MOD21 TES algorithm with Water Vapor Scaling atmospheric correction.

Time Range

Daily coverage from the MODIS Terra mission operational period.

Freshness

Daily update frequency.

Geography

Global land coverage on a sinusoidal MODIS grid.