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Full catalog/MIL3QAL
MIL3QAL·v006·dataset

How much sunlight the surface reflects, seasonal (MISR)

MISR Level 3 Component Global Albedo product covering a quarter (seasonal) V006
atmosphere NASA LARC_CLOUD Level 3 active HDF-EOS2
In plain English

What it measures. A seasonal global summary of how much sunlight the surface reflects (albedo) at green wavelengths, along with aerosol optical depth and a breakdown of the types of airborne particles present, on a coarse geographic grid.

How it's made. Compiled from the MISR instrument on the Terra satellite, which views each spot from nine camera angles in four colors; the detailed measurements are averaged over each three-month season and gridded.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for studying how reflective Earth's surface is and how airborne particles vary by season, both of which affect climate and the planet's energy balance.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › ALBEDOATMOSPHERE › AIR QUALITY › TURBIDITYATMOSPHERE › AIR QUALITY › PARTICULATES

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

MIL3QAL_006 is the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) Level 3 Component Global Albedo product covering a quarter (seasonal) version 6 data product. It contains a statistical summary of column albedo 555-nanometer optical depth and a monthly aerosol compositional type frequency histogram. This data product is a global summary of relevant Level 2 albedo parameters, averaged over a quarter and reported on a geographic grid, it has multiple data layers, with varying temporal resolutions of 1 degree by 1 degree and 5 degrees by 5 degrees. The seasons are winter (December from the previous year, January, February), spring (March, April, May), summer (June, July, August), and fall (September, October, November). Data collection for this product is ongoing. The MISR instrument consists of nine push-broom cameras that measure radiance in four spectral bands. Global coverage is achieved in nine days. The cameras are arranged with one camera pointing toward the nadir, four forward, and four aftward. It takes seven minutes for all nine cameras to view the same surface location. The view angles relative to the surface reference ellipsoid are 0, 26.1, 45.6, 60.0, and 70.5 degrees. The spectral band shapes are nominally Gaussian, centered at 443, 555, 670, and 865 nm. 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 successively 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 effects of sunlight on Earth 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.

Get the data

mil3qal_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MIL3QAL",
    version="006",
    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.