A suite of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity (LST&E) products are available in Collection 6.1. The MOD21 Land Surface Temperature (LST) algorithm differs from the algorithm of the MOD11 LST products, in that the MOD21 algorithm is based on the ASTER Temperature/Emissivity Separation (TES) technique, whereas the MOD11 uses the split-window technique. The MOD21 TES algorithm uses a physics-based algorithm to dynamically retrieve both the LST and spectral emissivity simultaneously from the MODIS thermal infrared bands 29, 31, and 32. The TES algorithm is combined with an improved Water Vapor Scaling (WVS) atmospheric correction scheme to stabilize the retrieval during very warm and humid conditions.
The MOD21A1D dataset is produced daily from daytime Level 2 Gridded (L2G) intermediate LST products at a spatial resolution of 1,000 meters. The L2G process maps the daily MOD21 swath granules onto a sinusoidal MODIS grid and stores all observations falling over a gridded cell for a given day. The MOD21A1 algorithm sorts through these observations for each cell and estimates the final LST value as an average from all observations that are cloud free and have good LST&E accuracies. The daytime average is weighted by the observation coverage for that cell. Only observations having an observation coverage greater than a 15% threshold are considered. The MOD21A1D product contains seven Science Datasets (SDS), which include the calculated LST as well as quality control, the three emissivity bands, view zenith angle, and time of observation. MOD21A1D products are available two months after acquisition due to latency of data inputs. Additional details regarding the methodology used to create this Level 3 (L3) product are available in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD).
Validation at stage 1 has been achieved for the MODIS Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity data products. Further details regarding MODIS land product validation for the MOD21 data products are available from the MODIS Land Team Validation site.
Characteristic | Description |
---|---|
Collection | Terra MODIS |
DOI | 10.5067/MODIS/MOD21A1D.061 |
File Size | ~1.4 MB |
Temporal Resolution | Daily |
Temporal Extent | 2000-02-24 to Present |
Spatial Extent | Global |
Coordinate System | Sinusoidal |
Datum | N/A |
File Format | HDF-EOS |
Geographic Dimensions | 1200 km x 1200 km |
Characteristic | Description |
---|---|
Number of Science Dataset (SDS) Layers | 7 |
Columns/Rows | 1200 x 1200 |
Pixel Size | 1000 m |
SDS Name | Description | Units | Data Type | Fill Value | No Data Value | Valid Range | Scale Factor | Additional Offset |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
LST_1KM | Land surface temperature | Kelvin | 16-bit unsigned integer | 0 | N/A | 7500 to 65535 | 0.02 | N/A |
QC | Quality Control (QC) | N/A | 16-bit unsigned integer | N/A | N/A | 0 to 65535 | N/A | N/A |
Emis_29 | Band 29 emissivity | N/A | 8-bit unsigned integer | 0 | N/A | 1 to 255 | 0.002 | 0.49 |
Emis_31 | Band 31 emissivity | N/A | 8-bit unsigned integer | 0 | N/A | 1 to 255 | 0.002 | 0.49 |
Emis_32 | Band 32 emissivity | N/A | 8-bit unsigned integer | 0 | N/A | 1 to 255 | 0.002 | 0.49 |
View_Angle | MODIS view zenith angle | Degree | 8-bit unsigned integer | 255 | N/A | 0 to 130 | N/A | -65 |
View_Time | Time of MODIS observation | Hours | 8-bit unsigned integer | 255 | N/A | 0 to 240 | 0.1 | N/A |
The Quality Control (QC) layer is stored in an efficient bit-encoded manner. The unpack_sds_bits executable from the LDOPE Tools is available to the user community to help parse and interpret the quality layer.
The final quality bit for the output product reflects the lowest quality values from all observations that went into the final average. The bit definition index for the QC layer is available in Table 10 of the User Guide.
For complete information about known issues please refer to the MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website.