Processing Data from Satellite Remote Sensing

• Brief introduction to remote sensing
• Obtaining NASA remote sensing data
• MODIS
• MODIStools package

• Total number of operating satellites: 1,305
• Total Earth Observing Satellites (EOS): 333
  • United States: 34%
  • China: 21%
    
  • Japan 6.3%

From the Union of Concerned Scientists Satellite Database and Pixalytics Blog

Image courtesy of European Space Agency

EarthData.nasa.gov

Datasets, news, articles, information

EarthData.nasa.gov

Datasets, news, articles, information

2 Satellites Terra launched in 1999, Aqua in 2002.

Viewing swath width of 2,330 km

Covers Earth every one to two days

36 spectral bands between 0.405 and 14.385 µm

3 spatial resolutions – 250m, 500m, and 1,000m

• Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System in White Sands, New Mexico
• EOS Data and Operations System @ Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD
• MODIS Adaptive Processing System (MODAPS)
• 3 DAACs for distribution

• Aerosol & Clouds
• Total Precipitable Water

• Snow Cover
• Sea Ice and Ice Surface Temperature

• Sea Surface Temperature
• Sub-surface Chlorophyll-a Concentration
• Particulate Carbon
• Photosynthetically Available Radiation

• Surface Reflectance
• Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity
• Land Cover Products
• Vegetation Index Products (NDVI and EVI)
• Thermal Anomalies - Active Fires
• Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FPAR) / Leaf Area Index (LAI)
• Evapotranspiration
• Primary Productivity
• Vegetation Continuous Fields
• Water Mask
• Burned Area Product

MODIS Products used to generate vegetation indices. From the MOD13 Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document.

Most NASA EOS data distributed as HDF files, which are very similar to netCDF.

MODIS/Terra Surface Reflectance 8-Day L3 Global 500m SIN Grid V005

• MODIS/Terra - Instrument/Sensor
• Surface Reflectance - Geophysical Parameter
• 8-Day - Temporal Resolution
• L3 - Processing Level
• Global - Global or Swath
• 500m - Spatial Resolution
• SIN Grid - Gridded or Not
• V005 - Collection Version

MOD09A1.A2006001.h08v05.005.2006012234657.hdf

• MOD09A1 - Product Short Name
• .A2006001 - Julian Date of Acquisition (A-YYYYDDD)
• .h08v05 - Tile Identifier (horizontalXXverticalYY)
• .005 - Collection Version
• .2006012234567 - Julian Date of Production (YYYYDDDHHMMSS)
• .hdf - Data Format (HDF-EOS)

• Daily
• 8-Day
• 16-Day
• Monthly
• Quarterly
• Yearly

• Bands 1–2 250-meter
• Bands 3–7 500-meter
• Bands 8–36 1000-meter

Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs)

• Level 1 data: geolocation, cloud mask, and atmosphere products ladsweb.nascom.nasa.gov
• Land products: lpdaac.usgs.gov
• Cryosphere (snow/ice) products: nsidc.org/daac/modis
• Ocean color and sea surface temperature: oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov

The Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center has a nice “Data Discovery” Tool:

Subsets of MODIS Land Products through Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP).

MODISTools R package.

• Images: NASA
• Some contents from Steve Ackerman stevea@ssec.wisc.edu, Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison