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Full catalog/MI1B2E
MI1B2E·v004·dataset

Multi-angle camera images mapped to a smooth Earth (MISR)

MISR Level 1B2 Ellipsoid Data V004
atmosphere NASA LARC_CLOUD Level 1B active netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Calibrated images of sunlight reflected from the top of the atmosphere, captured from nine different viewing angles and four colors, then mapped onto a smooth model of Earth's shape.

How it's made. Produced from the MISR instrument on NASA's Terra satellite at Level 1B2, with the multi-angle camera data geometrically and topographically corrected.

How & where you'd use it. A foundational image product used to study airborne particles, distinguish cloud and surface types, and analyze how vegetation and surfaces look from many angles.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE › SURFACE PRESSUREATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC PRESSUREATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURESPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › VISIBLE WAVELENGTHS › VISIBLE IMAGERYATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE › SURFACE TEMPERATURESPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › VISIBLE WAVELENGTHS

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1999-12-18 → ongoing
  • Measured byTerra (MISR)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

MI1B2E_004 is the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) Level 1B2 Ellipsoid Data Version 4 product. It contains Ellipsoid-projected Top-of-Atmosphere (TOA) Radiance, resampled at the surface and topographically corrected, as well as geometrically corrected by PGE22. Data collection for this product is ongoing. MISR itself is an instrument designed to view Earth with cameras pointed in 9 different directions. As the instrument flies overhead, each piece of Earth's surface below is successively imaged by all 9 cameras, in each of 4 wavelengths (blue, green, red, and near-infrared). The goal of MISR is to improve our understanding of the affects of sunlight on Earth, as well as distinguish different types of clouds, particles and surfaces. Specifically, MISR monitors the monthly, seasonal, and long-term trends in three areas: 1) amount and type of atmospheric particles (aerosols), including those formed by natural sources and by human activities; 2) amounts, types, and heights of clouds, and 3) distribution of land surface cover, including vegetation canopy structure.

Get the data

mi1b2e_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MI1B2E",
    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 LARC_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.