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Full catalog/AST_08
AST_08·v004·dataset

How hot the land surface is (ASTER)

ASTER L2 Surface Kinetic Temperature V004
land NASA LPCLOUD Level 2 COG
In plain English

What it measures. The actual temperature of the land surface, measured for both day and night observations at 90-meter detail. It's the true skin temperature of the ground rather than the air above it.

How it's made. Derived from the thermal-infrared bands of the ASTER instrument on NASA's Terra satellite, using a method that separates surface temperature from how the surface emits heat, with improved atmospheric correction; note this instrument was turned off in January 2026.

How & where you'd use it. Used to study land surface heat, volcanoes, geology, water use, and urban temperatures at fine spatial detail.

What's measured

LAND SURFACE › SURFACE THERMAL PROPERTIES › LAND SURFACE TEMPERATUREOCEANS › OCEAN TEMPERATURE › SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2000-03-04 → 2026-01-16
  • Measured byTerra (ASTER)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsCOG
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

The Terra Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Surface Kinetic Temperature (AST_08) V004 product delivers surface kinetic temperature data derived from the five Thermal Infrared (TIR) bands (Bands 10–14), collected during both daytime and nighttime observations. The AST_08 product has a spatial resolution of 90 meters (m) for the TIR bands. This Level 2 (L2) product is produced using the Temperature/Emissivity Separation (TES) algorithm, which processes atmospherically corrected ASTER surface radiance (TIR) data to estimate emissivity and compute temperature. In Version 4, atmospheric correction has been significantly improved by integrating Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications Version 2 (MERRA-2) data, enhancing the accuracy of temperature retrievals. Acquisitions for AST_08 ended on January 16, 2026, at 05:10:45 UTC, when the ASTER TIR instrument was permanently turned off due to power limitations on the Terra spacecraft. More information is available in this [NASA Science News Brief](https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/science-news/2026/02/12/terra-adjusts-instrument-operations-to-extend-mission-life/).  Known Issues * Level 2 products that are on the international date line/anti-meridian have incorrect bounding coordinates for the UTM zone defined in the file metadata.

Get the data

ast_08_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="AST_08",
    version="004",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from LPCLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.