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Full catalog/MIL3DCOD
MIL3DCOD·v001·dataset

How high and thick clouds are, daily (MISR)

MISR Level 3 Cloud Top Height-Optical Depth Product covering a day V001
atmosphere NASA LARC_CLOUD Level 3 active HDF-EOS2
In plain English

What it measures. A daily global summary of how high cloud tops sit and how thick clouds are. It draws on a camera system that views each spot from nine different angles to tell clouds, airborne particles, and surface types apart.

How it's made. Produced from the MISR instrument on NASA's Terra satellite and rolled up into a daily Level 3 summary product.

How & where you'd use it. Helps scientists study clouds and how they affect the path of sunlight through the atmosphere, part of tracking the planet's energy balance and climate.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD MICROPHYSICS › CLOUD OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESSATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD TOP HEIGHT

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1999-12-18 → ongoing
  • Measured byTerra (MISR)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsHDF-EOS2
  • 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

Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) is designed to view Earth with cameras pointed in 9 different directions. As the instrument flies overhead, each piece of Earth's surface below is successfully imaged by all nine cameras in 4 wavelengths (blue, green, red, and near-infrared). The goal of MISR is to improve our understanding of the fate of sunlight in Earth's environment and 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. This file contains the public MISR Level 3 Cloud Top Height-Optical Depth Product covering a day.

Get the data

mil3dcod_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MIL3DCOD",
    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 LARC_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.