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

MODIS/Terra Land Surface Temperature/3-Band Emissivity Daily L3 Global 1km SIN Grid Night V061 provides daily global nighttime land surface temperature and spectral emissivity estimates. The dataset is produced by NASA's LPCLOUD using a physics-based Temperature/Emissivity Separation algorithm on MODIS thermal infrared data. It offers a spatial resolution of 1,000 meters and is part of the MODIS Collection 6.1.

Use Cases

• Analyze urban heat island intensity by comparing nighttime LST values between urban and rural pixels.
• Monitor thermal anomalies like wildfires or volcanic activity using the LST field, noting the algorithm retains extreme high values for such targets.
• Model surface energy fluxes by combining the three emissivity band values with other meteorological datasets.
• Assess land cover change impacts on surface temperature by tracking LST trends over time for specific regions.
• Perform atmospheric correction validation using the view zenith angle and time of observation fields to understand retrieval conditions.

Strengths

• Global coverage at a 1,000-meter spatial resolution.
• Daily temporal resolution for monitoring diurnal cycles.
• Algorithm simultaneously retrieves both land surface temperature and spectral emissivity from three thermal bands.
• Employs an improved Water Vapor Scaling atmospheric correction for stability in warm, humid conditions.

Limitations

• Contains known occurrences of extreme high temperature outliers, especially over desert regions like the Sahara.
• Contaminated pixels from undetected cloud and dust are not automatically filtered; users must apply Quality Control (QC) filtering.
• Final LST value for a cell is an average, weighted by observation coverage, which may smooth localized extremes.

Provenance

Source

NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard the Terra satellite.

Collection Method

Produced from nighttime Level 2 Gridded intermediate products using a Temperature/Emissivity Separation algorithm on MODIS bands 29, 31, and 32, mapped to a sinusoidal grid.

Time Range

Daily coverage from the Terra satellite's operational period.

Freshness

Daily updates.

Geography

Global land surface.