Air temperature and water vapor layers (Terra, 5 km)
What it measures. Vertical profiles of air temperature and moisture through the atmosphere at about 5-km detail, plus total water vapor, total ozone, and several indices that gauge how stormy or stable the air is, for both day and night.
How it's made. Retrieved from infrared measurements by the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite, computed wherever skies are clear enough, and delivered as 5-minute strips along the satellite's path.
How & where you'd use it. Supports weather analysis and forecasting by revealing atmospheric moisture, temperature structure, and conditions favorable for storms.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2000-02-24 → ongoing
- Measured byTerra (MODIS)
- Processing levelLevel 2
- Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
- FormatsHDF-EOS
- 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
The MODIS/Terra Temperature and Water Vapor Profiles 5-Min L2 Swath 5km (MOD07_L2) product consists of a numbers of parameters related to atmospheric stability, atmospheric temperature and moisture profiles, total atmospheric water vapor, and total ozone. All of these parameters are produced for both daytime and nighttime conditions at 5-km pixel resolution when at least 9 Field Of View (FOV) are cloud free. The MODIS total-ozone burden is an estimate of the total-column tropospheric and stratospheric ozone content. The MODIS atmospheric stability consists of three daily Level 2 atmospheric stability indices. The Total Totals (TT), the Lifted Index (LI), and the K index (K) are each computed using the infrared temperature- and moisture-profile data, also derived as part of MOD07. The MODIS temperature and moisture profiles are produced at 20 vertical levels. The MODIS atmospheric water-vapor product is an estimate of the total tropospheric column water vapor made from integrated MODIS infrared retrievals of atmospheric moisture profiles in clear scenes. Additional information is available at: https://modis-atmos.gsfc.nasa.gov/products/atm-profile.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="MOD07_L2",
version="6.1",
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 LAADS Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package. Official links
- The MODIS Atmospheric Profile product version 6 to 6.1 change document VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Atmospheric Profile product ATBD VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Search and order products from LAADS website. GET DATA
- Direct access to MOD07_L2 C6.1 data set. GET DATA
- Direct access to product's OPeNDAP directory USE SERVICE API
- Earthdata Search allows users to search, discover, visualize, refine, and access NASA Earth Observation data. GET DATA