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Full catalog/EMITL2BFRCOV
EMITL2BFRCOV·v001·dataset

What fraction of ground is plants, soil or rock (EMIT, 60 m)

EMIT L2B Fractional Cover and Uncertainty 60 m V001
land NASA LPCLOUD Level 2B active COG
In plain English

What it measures. For each 60-meter patch of ground, the estimated share that is living plants, bare soil, or rock, along with how confident the estimate is.

How it's made. Derived from the EMIT imaging spectrometer on the International Space Station, which records the color signature of sunlit surfaces; these fractions are calculated from EMIT's surface-reflectance product.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for tracking vegetation, bare ground, and dust-source regions, and for understanding land cover in arid areas. Very cloudy scenes are excluded.

What's measured

LAND SURFACE › LAND USE/LAND COVER

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2022-08-09 → ongoing
  • Measured byISS (EMIT Imaging Spectrometer)
  • Processing levelLevel 2B
  • Spatial extent-180, -54, 180, 54
  • FormatsCOG
  • StatusACTIVE

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 Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) instrument measures surface mineralogy, targeting the Earth’s arid dust source regions. EMIT is installed on the International Space Station (ISS). EMIT uses imaging spectroscopy to take measurements of the sunlit regions of interest between ~52° N latitude and ~52° S latitude. An interactive map showing the locations of regions being investigated, current and forecasted data coverage, and additional data resources can be found on the VSWIR Imaging Spectroscopy Interface for Open Science (VISIONS) [EMIT Open Data Portal](https://earth.jpl.nasa.gov/emit/data/data-portal/coverage-and-forecasts/). The EMIT Level 2B Fractional Cover and Uncertainty (EMITL2BFRCOV) Version 1 data product provides a series of fractional cover estimates, associated uncertainty metrics, and one quality control (QC) flag mask variable. The fractional cover estimates are derived from the EMIT L2A Estimated Surface Reflectance and Uncertainty and Masks ([EMITL2ARFL](https://doi.org/10.5067/EMIT/EMITL2ARFL.001)) data product, while the QC flag mask variable is derived from EMITL2ARFL, EMIT L2A Mask ([EMITL2AMASK](https://doi.org/10.5067/EMIT/EMITL2AMASK.002)), and non-EMIT landcover and water body inputs. Scenes/granules where cloud cover is greater than 80 percent have been excluded from this collection. For more details about inputs used for this data product, see Sections 4.3 and 4.5 of the Algorithm Technical Basis Document ([ATBD](https://github.com/emit-sds/emit-sds-frcov/blob/main/docs/EMIT_L2B_Fractional_Cover_ATBD.md)). Each EMITL2BFRCOV granule consists of seven Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) files at 60 meter (m) spatial resolution: Photosynthetic Vegetation Fractional Cover (EMIT_L2B_FRCOVPV) and Uncertainty (EMIT_L2B_FRCOVPVUNC), Non-photosynthetic Vegetation Fractional Cover (EMIT_L2B_FRCOVNPV) and Uncertainty (EMIT_L2B_FRCOVNPVUNC), Bare Soil Fractional Cover (EMIT_L2B_FRCOVBARE) and Uncertainty (EMIT_L2B_FRCOVBAREUNC), and QC Flags (EMIT_L2B_FRCOVQC). A browse image is also available. Each granule is approximately 75 kilometers (km) by 75 km, nominal at the equator with some granules at the end of an orbit segment reaching 150 km in length. Known Issues • Data acquisition gap: From September 13, 2022, to January 6, 2023, a power issue resulted in a shutdown of the EMIT sensor. No data were acquired during that time frame.

Get the data

emitl2bfrcov_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="EMITL2BFRCOV",
    version="001",
    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.