Your Source for Level-1 and Atmospheric Science Data
The Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive & Distribution System (LAADS) DAAC provides access to atmospheric data—such as clouds, water vapor, and aerosols—as well as key instrument data from NASA, NOAA, and ESA missions. It also serves as a backup source for MODIS and VIIRS land products.
MODIS
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) launched aboard two satellite platforms, Terra in 1999 and Aqua in 2002. MODIS-derived data products continue to play a vital role in helping develop and validate global Earth system models with sufficient predictive potential to inform and help policymakers as they address global environmental change.
VIIRS
The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is a satellite instrument that captures images of Earth day and night using 22 different channels of light, including a special ultra-sensitive band that can detect city lights and other nighttime activity from space. First launched on the Suomi National Polar Orbiting Partnership satellite platform in 2012 and orbiting aboard NOAA-20 and NOAA-21 satellites, VIIRS helps scientists monitor clouds, ocean temperatures, wildfires, ice movement, and other changes to better understand our planet's climate.
MERIS
The Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) was a programmable imaging spectroradiometer deployed on European Space Agency's Envisat-1 satellite in March 2002, capable of measuring ocean color, atmospheric, and terrestrial observations with 15 adjustable bands in the 390-1040 nm spectral range and providing global coverage every 3 days at 300m resolution.
OLCI
The Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI), aboard Sentinel-3A and 3B satellites, is the successor to ENVISAT MERIS, featuring 21 spectral bands (400-1040 nm) and a unique five-camera push-broom design arranged in a fan configuration. The instrument provides 300m spatial resolution imagery, offering improved signal-to-noise ratio and global coverage every 3-4 days for ocean and land monitoring.
SLSTR
The Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) is a dual-view scanning temperature radiometer aboard Sentinel-3A and 3B satellites, designed to provide highly accurate sea surface temperature and land surface temperature measurements. SLSTR continues the 30+ year climate data record from the Along-Track Scanning Radiometers instrument series while adding enhanced capabilities including fire detection, improved cloud detection, and wider swath coverage for global coverage every 1-2 days.
MODIS L0 & L1
The MODIS Level-0 Production Data Set (PDS) is the raw instrument package consisting of a 5-minute swath of data. It is used to produce calibrated and geolocated MODIS radiances, or Level-1 data. The Level-1B data products contain calibrated radiances for all 36 MODIS bands and reflectances for the reflective Solar bands.
VIIRS L1 & L0
The VIIRS Suomi NPP (SNPP) Level-0 comprises raw instrument data packets that are used to generate calibrated and geolocated VIIRS Level-1 products. The NASA VIIRS Level-1B suite include two sets of three products (that each relate to image-resolution, moderate-resolution, and day-night band) that provide calibrated radiances and geolocation products.
MERIS L1
MERIS Level-1B data are resampled from level-0 data on a path-oriented grid, with pixel values having been calibrated to match the Top Of Atmosphere (TOA) radiance.
OLCI L1
OLCI processing inputs are Level-0 products, the orbits scenario file, and several auxiliary data files providing calibration coefficient, surface classification or threshold for bright and glint classification. From these inputs are derived Level-1B data, i.e. radiometrically calibrated, geo-referenced and annotated radiances.
SLSTR L1B
The SLSTR Level-1B product gathers, for each view and for each channel, the full-resolution geolocated radiometric measurements. For thermal IR and fire channels (labelled as S7 to S9 and F1, F2 for fire channels), the radiometric measurements are expressed in Top Of Atmosphere (TOA) brightness temperatures.
Aerosol
The MODIS Aerosol Product monitors the ambient aerosol optical thickness over the oceans globally and over the continents. Furthermore, the aerosol size distribution is derived over the oceans, and the aerosol type is derived over the continents. The aerosol product includes the "deep-blue" algorithm recently developed to get aerosol optical thickness over bright land areas.
Water Vapor
The MODIS Precipitable Water product consists of column water-vapor amounts. During the daytime, a near-infrared algorithm is applied over clear land areas of the globe and above clouds over both land and ocean. An infrared algorithm for deriving atmospheric profiles is also applied both day and night for Level-2.
Cloud Properties
The MODIS Cloud Product combines infrared and visible techniques to determine both physical and radiative cloud properties. Daily global Level-2 data are provided. Cloud-particle phase (ice vs. water, clouds vs. snow), effective cloud-particle radius, and cloud optical thickness are derived using the MODIS visible and near-infrared channel radiances.
Atmospheric Profiles
The MODIS Atmospheric Profile product consists of several parameters: they are total-ozone burden, atmospheric stability, temperature and moisture profiles, and atmospheric water vapor. All of these parameters are produced day and night for Level-2 at 5x5 1-km pixel resolution when at least 9 FOVs are cloud free.
Cloud Mask
The MODIS Cloud Mask product is a Level-2 product generated at 1-km and 250-m (at nadir) spatial resolutions. The algorithm employs a series of visible and infrared threshold and consistency tests to specify confidence that an unobstructed view of the Earth's surface is observed.
L2 Joint Atmosphere
The post-launch MODIS Atmosphere Level-2 Joint Product contains a spectrum of key parameters gleaned from the complete set of standard at-launch Level-2 products: Aerosol, Water Vapor, Cloud, Profile, and Cloud Mask. The new Joint Atmosphere product was designed to be small enough to minimize data transfer and storage requirements, yet robust enough to be useful to MODIS data users.
L3 Atmosphere
The Level-3 MODIS Atmosphere Daily Global Product contains roughly 600 statistical datasets that are derived from approximately 80 scientific parameters from four Level-2 MODIS Atmosphere Products: Aerosol, Water Vapor, Cloud, and Atmosphere Profile.
VIIRS+CrIS Fusion
The Level-2 VIIRS+CrIS Fusion product leverages the attributes and assets of an imager and a sounder instrument to create narrowband earth-view radiances that are based on the Aqua MODIS instrument’s spectral response functions. This innovative fusion-based product is necessitated by the VIIRS instrument’s lack of infrared bands that are responsive to atmospheric absorption.
AMS
The Autonomous Modular Sensor (AMS) is an airborne scanning spectrometer that acquires high spatial resolution imagery of the Earth's features from its vantage point on-board low and medium altitude research aircraft.
MAS / eMAS
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Airborne Simulator (MAS) sensor was developed for NASA's high-altitude ER-2 research aircraft by Daedalus Enterprises, Inc., in support of the MODIS remote sensing algorithm development.
Land Surface Reflectance
The MODIS Surface Reflectance products provide an estimate of the surface spectral reflectance as it would be measured at ground level in the absence of atmospheric scattering or absorption. Low-level data are corrected for atmospheric gases and aerosols, yielding a level-2 basis for several higher-order gridded products.
Land Surface Temperature & Emissivity
The Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Emissivity daily data are retrieved at 1km pixels by the generalized split-window algorithm and at 6km grids by the day/night algorithm. The product is comprised of LSTs, quality assessment, observation time, view angles, and emissivities.
BRDF, Albedo, & NBAR
The Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function/Albedo parameters provide coefficients for mathematical functions that describe the BRDF of each pixel in the seven MODIS 'Land' bands, and albedo measurements derived simultaneously from the BRDF for bands 1-7 as well as three broad bands.
MAIAC
Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) accomplishes atmospheric correction via a new method that is encoded in a generic algorithm designed to work with MODIS data to facilitate deriving both aerosol and land surface reflectance products.
Photosynthetically Active Radiation
Incident Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) on the Earth’s surface represents a part of the solar radiation spectrum from 0.4 µm to 0.7 µm that is absorbed, transferred and stored within ecosystems. PAR constitutes a crucial input parameter that is used in several terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem productivity models to support climate change studies, both on regional and global scales.
Vegetation Indices
MODIS vegetation indices, produced on 16-day intervals and at multiple spatial resolutions, provide consistent spatial and temporal comparisons of vegetation canopy greenness, a composite property of leaf area, chlorophyll and canopy structure. Two vegetation indices are derived from atmospherically-corrected reflectance in the red, near-infrared, and blue wavebands.
LAI & fPAR
LAI is defined as the one-sided green leaf area per unit ground area in broadleaf canopies and as half the total needle surface area per unit ground area in coniferous canopies. FPAR is the fraction of photosynthetically active radiation (400-700 nm) absorbed by green vegetation.
GPP & NPP
The Primary Production products are designed to provide an accurate regular measure of the growth of the terrestrial vegetation. The product is a cumulative composite of GPP values based on the radiation use efficiency concept that may be used as inputs to data models for calculating terrestrial energy, carbon, water cycle processes, and biogeochemistry of vegetation.
Evapotranspiration
This project is part of NASA/EOS project to estimate global terrestrial evapotranspiration from earth land surface by using satellite remote sensing data. MOD16 global evapotranspiration product can be used to calculate regional water and energy balance, soil water status; hence, it provides key information for water resource management.
Thermal Anomalies/Fire
MODIS Thermal Anomalies/Fire products are primarily derived from MODIS 4- and 11-micrometer radiances. The fire detection strategy is based on absolute detection of a fire (when the fire strength is sufficient to detect), and on detection relative to its background (to account for variability of the surface temperature and reflection by sunlight).
Burned Area
The Burned Area product contains burning and quality information on a per-pixel basis. Produced from both the Terra and Aqua MODIS-derived daily surface reflectance inputs, the algorithm analyzes the daily surface reflectance dynamics to locate rapid changes, and uses that information to detect the approximate date of burning, mapping the spatial extent of recent fires only.
Land Cover & Phenology
The MODIS Terra+Aqua Combined Land Cover product incorporates five different land cover classification schemes, derived through a supervised decision-tree classification method. The primary land cover scheme identifies 17 classes defined by the IGBP, including 11 natural vegetation classes, three human-altered classes, and three non-vegetated classes.
Vegetation Continuous Fields
Proportional estimates of cover are developed from global training data derived using high-resolution imagery. The training data and phenological metrics are used with a regression tree to derive percent cover globally. The model is then used to estimate areal proportions of life form, leaf type, and leaf longevity.
Nighttime Lights
Nighttime Lights (NTL) represent NASA’s recognition of the importance of studying human impacts on the globe at night. The SNPP VIIRS instrument supports a Day-Night Band sensor that provides global daily measurements of nocturnal visible and near-infrared light that are suitable for Earth system science and applications. Two 500-m products comprise the NTL suite.
MODIS for NACP
The North American Carbon Program (NACP ) provides the scientific foundation to inform future policy decisions involving the carbon cycle, such as managing carbon sources and sinks through efficient and effective options to reduce emission and enhance carbon sinks. (Image credit: NASA GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio)
Long-Term Data Record
The Long-Term Data Record (LTDR), a NASA Research, Education and Applications Solutions Network (REASoN) project, produces, validates and distributes a global land surface climate data record (CDR) that uses both mature and well-tested algorithms in concert with the best-available polar-orbiting satellite data from past to the present.
GEO-LEO Dark Target Aerosol
The Geostationary Earth Orbit - Low-Earth Orbit (GEO-LEO) Dark Target Aerosol project is a NASA project funded under the Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) Program. The purpose is to derive a global and temporally-resolved aerosol dataset, using a single aerosol-retrieval algorithm on multiple GEO and LEO satellite imagers. This collection covers the years 2019-2022.
GEO-LEO Deep Blue Aerosol
The Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) - Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) Deep Blue Aerosol project is funded by ESROGSS (Earth Science Research from Operational Geostationary Satellite Systems). This project has helped develop a suite of structurally consistent global Deep Blue Aerosol products both from GEO and GEO-LEO Merged observations from May 1, 2019 through April 30, 2020.
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