MODIS Terra Atmospheric Profiles and Stability Indices

Atmospheric temperature and moisture profiles, total water vapor, ozone content, and stability indices derived from the MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite. The data is produced for both day and night at a 5-km pixel resolution, with profiles generated at 20 vertical levels. This Level 2 swath product is provided by NASA's Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive & Distribution System (LAADS).

Use Cases

• Analyzing vertical temperature profiles across 20 atmospheric levels for climate modeling.
• Estimating total column water vapor and ozone content for atmospheric chemistry studies.
• Calculating atmospheric stability indices (Total Totals, Lifted Index, K index) for severe weather prediction.
• Comparing daytime and nighttime atmospheric moisture and temperature conditions.

Strengths

• Provides high-resolution (5-km pixel) atmospheric profiles for both day and night conditions.
• Includes multiple derived parameters: temperature/moisture profiles, total water vapor, ozone, and three stability indices.
• Data is produced by a well-established NASA mission (Terra/MODIS) and hosted on the authoritative LAADS platform.

Limitations

• Specific column names, dataset size, and row counts are not provided by any source.
• Data retrieval requires clear-sky conditions (at least 9 cloud-free fields of view).
• Sources conflict on license details, with one specifying 'other-license-specified' and another listing 'None'.

Provenance

Source

NASA Terra/MODIS instrument, processed by the Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive & Distribution System (LAADS).

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing via the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument.

Freshness

2026-03-12 23:36:36.436965

Geography

Global coverage from the Terra satellite's sun-synchronous orbit.