MODIS V001: Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Temperature, Albedo, and Water Vapor

MODIS Collection 6.1 and 6.0 data at 0.78 km resolution provides ice surface temperature, albedo, water vapor, and derived melt maps for Greenland from March 2000. This multilayer dataset supports the evaluation of relationships between surface temperature, melt, and the ice sheet radiation budget. It includes ancillary ice and drainage basin masks for spatial analysis.

Use Cases

• Evaluating the relationship between ice surface temperature and surface melt based on the derived melt map.
• Validating dynamical ice sheet model output (e.g., MERRA-2) using the MODIS ice surface temperature data.
• Comparing satellite-derived products (e.g., VIIRS, AIRS) using the MODIS albedo and water vapor layers.
• Delineating analysis regions using the included ice mask and drainage basins mask.

Strengths

• Provides a 20+ year time series, with core data from March 2000 to December 2019 and ice surface temperature extended to August 2021.
• Includes multiple physically related variables (temperature, albedo, water vapor, melt) at a consistent 0.78 km spatial resolution.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov signals its importance and curation for the research community.

Limitations

• Key metadata is missing: specific column names, row counts, file size, license, and author are not provided.
• The last updated date conflicts between sources (2026-04 10 vs. 2021-08-31), creating uncertainty about provenance.
• Documentation is limited to a PDF format, which may restrict machine-readability and detailed variable inspection.

Provenance

Source

NSIDC_CPRD

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing from MODIS instruments.

Time Range

2000-03-01 to 2021-08-31 (with variable-specific end dates)

Freshness

2026 04-10 19:43:45.062702

Geography

Greenland