SNDR13IML3SSDFCVPD: Daily Fused Satellite Vapor Pressure Deficit for the Continental US

Daily products on a ¼ x ¼ degree grid covering the continental United States (CONUS). This dataset provides fused estimates of near-surface vapor pressure deficit, generated by the Spatial Statistical Data Fusion (SSDF) algorithm combining data from the AIRS instrument on Aqua and the CrIMSS suite on Suomi-NPP. The algorithm weights input data based on estimated variance to infer a value for each grid point.

Use Cases

• Monitoring drought stress and atmospheric aridity based on daily vapor pressure deficit estimates.
• Validating or improving land surface models using spatially fused satellite-derived moisture data.
• Analyzing spatial patterns of water vapor indicators over the continental US on a consistent grid.
• Studying the performance of statistical data fusion techniques for combining multiple satellite instruments.

Strengths

• Data is produced via a sophisticated fusion algorithm that weights inputs by variance, likely improving accuracy.
• Provides daily, spatially consistent coverage over the entire continental United States (CONUS).
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov signals its importance and official curation.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing: specific column names, row counts, and file sizes are unknown across all sources.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates (2026-04 09 and 2020-12-31) create uncertainty about dataset freshness.
• Documentation gaps exist, as the exact license terms under 'other-license-specified' are not provided.

Provenance

Source

Fused data from NASA's Aqua (AIRS) and Suomi-NPP (CrIMSS) satellite instruments.

Collection Method

Spatial Statistical Data Fusion (SSDF) algorithm applied to bias-corrected Level-2 satellite retrievals.

Time Range

null

Freshness

2026-04-09 20:28:51.328172 (conflict with 2020-12-31 date noted in limitations)

Geography

Continental United States (CONUS) on a ¼ x ¼ degree latitude/longitude grid.