MOD16A2: Global 8-Day Evapotranspiration at 500m Resolution

An 8-day composite dataset provides global estimates of evapotranspiration and latent heat flux at a 500-meter pixel resolution. The algorithm is based on the Penman-Monteith equation, incorporating daily meteorological reanalysis data and MODIS remote sensing inputs like vegetation dynamics and land cover. This version (V006) was decommissioned on July 31, 2023, with users directed to the updated V6.1 product.

Use Cases

• Modeling regional water balance based on composited evapotranspiration (ET) and potential ET (PET) layers.
• Analyzing land surface energy fluxes using the average latent heat flux (LE) and potential LE (PLE) layers.
• Monitoring vegetation water stress and irrigation demand over time using the 8-day temporal composite.
• Assessing changes in evapotranspiration patterns due to land cover change, using the 500m spatial resolution.

Strengths

• Provides a long-term, operational data product with a spatial resolution of 500 meters, improved from 1,000 meters in the previous version.
• Includes multiple derived layers (ET, LE, PET, PLE) and a quality control layer, supporting various hydrological analyses.

Limitations

• The dataset is deprecated (decommissioned July 31, 2023), indicating it is not the current version and may have unresolved operational or uncertainty issues.
• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable across all sources.

Provenance

Source

LPCLOUD (NASA's Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center)

Collection Method

Generated via an algorithm based on the Penman-Monteith equation, using MODIS remote sensing data and meteorological reanalysis inputs.

Freshness

2026-04-10 00:45:29.314198

Geography

Global