SAFARI 2000 MODIS Aerosol Data for Southern Africa in GRANT Format

Satellite aerosol observations provide a subset of MODIS MOD04_L2 data coinciding with aircraft missions for the SAFARI 2000 campaign. Daily Level 2 data from August 21 to September 26, 2000, are converted from HDF to GRANT format, where each 1 km pixel is a row with georeferencing and Scientific Data Set columns. This dataset was produced by NASA's GSFC DAAC (Collection 004, V4.1.0) to support aerosol research and validation.

Use Cases

• Validating aircraft-based aerosol measurements using coincident satellite-derived aerosol optical thickness.
• Analyzing spatial patterns of aerosol type and particle size distribution over land and ocean.
• Studying daily aerosol variability in southern Africa during the late dry season (August-September 2000).
• Correlating georeferenced pixel data (latitude, longitude) with ground-based atmospheric observations.

Strengths

• Data is spatially explicit with a 1 km resolution at nadir, providing detailed pixel-level information.
• Covers a specific, focused time period (37 days) aligned with a major field campaign (SAFARI 2000).
• Data is converted to an accessible, comma-delimited ASCII table (GRANT) format from native HDF.

Limitations

• Key metrics like total row count, file size, and specific column names are not provided by any source.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date, listing either 2000-09-26 or a future date of 2026-03 12.
• Temporal coverage is limited to a single, short campaign period in 2000.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), GSFC DAAC.

Collection Method

Subset of MODIS MOD04_L2 swath data, converted from HDF to GRANT ASCII table format.

Time Range

August 21, 2000, through September 26, 2000.

Freshness

2000-09-26 23:59:59.999000

Geography

Southern Africa, specifically SAFARI 2000 region swaths coinciding with aircraft missions.