NASA CWIC Project: MODIS and Nimbus-6 Satellite Imagery

The NASA CWIC Project aggregates two satellite data products. The MOD09Q1N product provides daily, near-real-time surface reflectance at 250-meter resolution from the MODIS instrument, selecting the best cloud-free observations over an 8-day period. The SCAMSN6IM product contains historical microwave spectrometer images from the Nimbus-6 satellite, providing brightness temperatures and retrieved atmospheric parameters like water vapor and temperature profiles from June 1975 to May 1976.

Use Cases

• Monitoring land surface changes based on daily, cloud-filtered MODIS reflectance data.
• Analyzing historical atmospheric temperature profiles based on Nimbus-6 microwave brightness temperatures.
• Estimating water vapor and cloud liquid water over oceans using the SCAMS instrument's 22.235 and 31.65 GHz channels.
• Studying long-term climate trends by comparing modern MODIS data with historical Nimbus-6 observations.

Strengths

• MODIS data provides daily, near-real-time observations with a resolution of 250 meters.
• The SCAMS instrument data has a documented absolute accuracy better than 2 Kelvin for temperature channels and 1 Kelvin for water vapor channels.
• The Nimbus-6 SCAMS images cover a specific time range from June 15, 1975, to May 31, 1976.

Limitations

• Row count and total dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The SCAMSN6IM product's spatial resolution varies from 145 km at nadir to 330 km at scan extremes, which is coarse.

Provenance

Source

NASA

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing from the MODIS and Nimbus-6 SCAMS instruments.

Time Range

MODIS: contemporary daily data; Nimbus-6 SCAMS: June 15, 1975 to May 31, 1976.

Freshness

The MOD09Q1N product is described as 'Near Real Time', but the last update date for this specific collection is unknown.

Geography

Global coverage from satellite orbits.