Snow cover plays a crucial role in surface hydrology and energy balance, especially in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP). This study used 12 years (2000–2011) of ground-observed snow depth at 87 meteorological stations to assess and verify the accuracy of the daily cloud-free snow-cover product from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) over the QTP. On average, the daily cl...

The 14-channel Ames Airborne Tracking Sunphotometer (AATS) was operated on a Jetstream 31 (J31) aircraft in March 2006 during MILAGRO/INTEX-B (Megacity Initiative-Local And Global Research Observations/Phase B of the Intercontinental Chemical Transport Experiment). We compare AATS retrievals of spectral aerosol optical depth (AOD) and related aerosol properties with corresponding spatially coin...

The MODIS Rapid Response (RR) System was developed to meet the near real time needs of the applications community. Generally, its products are available online within hours of the satellite overpass. We recently adapted the standard MODIS land surface temperature (LST) splitwindow algorithm for use in the RR System. To minimize latency, we eliminated the algorithm's dependency on upstream MODIS...

MODIS data is the world’s best remote sensing data of free receiving. It plays an important role in agriculture science and application. However, there is a serious problem about duplicated establishment of MODIS data receive station in China, and it has brought a tremendous waste of money. This paper presents research work on utilizing data grid technology to integrate heterogeneous distribute...

MODIS vegetation index (VI) products (MOD13) are widely used in many science applications that aim to monitor and characterize spatial and temporal vegetation dynamics from space. The quality and reliability of the MODIS VI products are vital to these studies, and thus there is a need to assess their quality. In this study, the AERONET-based Surface Reflectance Validation Network (ASRVN) datase...

The need Although the South Sandwich Islands are uninhabited, NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites fly overhead four times per day, skimming past at 7.5 kilometers per second and an altitude of 705 kilometers. Each spacecraft carries a Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument, which acquires resolution data of 250 to 1,000 meters/pixel about the islands as part of a 2,700-ki...

The aim of this study was to compare the available tools in R for downloading and processing Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data, specifically Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) product. evaluated were MODIS package, RGISTools, MODISTools, Google Earth Engine (RGEE) MODIStsp, Application Extracting Exploring Analysis Ready Samples (AppEEARS) application. Each tool used downl...

The Vegetative Cover Conversion (VCC) product is designed to serve as a global alarm for land cover change caused by anthropogenic activities and extreme natural events. MODIS 250 m surface reflectance data availability was limited both spatially and temporally in the first year after launch due to processing system constraints. To address this situation, the VCC algorithms were applied to avai...

As a critical variable to characterize the biophysical processes in ecological environment, and as a key indicator in the surface energy balance, evapotranspiration and urban heat islands, Land Surface Temperature (LST) retrieved from Thermal Infra-Red (TIR) images at both high temporal and spatial resolution is in urgent need. However, due to the limitations of the existing satellite sensors, ...

Uncertainties in retrievals of bio-optical properties from satellite ocean color imagery are related to a variety of factors, including errors associated with sensor calibration and degradation, atmospheric correction, and the bio-optical inversion algorithms. Here we examine the impact of uncertainties in the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiances and coefficients in the quasi-analytical algorithm ...