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Full catalog/MOD15A2PHN
MOD15A2PHN·v6·dataset

Yearly cycle of leaf growth on land (Terra, 1 km)

MODIS/Terra LAI-FPAR Phenology annual L4 Global 1km SIN Grid
biosphere NASA LAADS Level 4 active HDF-EOS
In plain English

What it measures. Captures the yearly rhythm of plant growth on land, including when leaf cover ramps up and winds down through the seasons, summarized once per year.

How it's made. Derived from MODIS data on NASA's Terra satellite, built up from 8-day leaf-area snapshots into annual growing-season parameters at 1 km resolution.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for studying growing seasons, how vegetation responds to climate, and how the timing of plant growth shifts from year to year.

What's measured

BIOSPHERE › VEGETATION › PLANT PHENOLOGYBIOSPHERE › VEGETATION › PLANT PHENOLOGY › GROWTH STAGE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2001-01-01 → ongoing
  • Measured byTerra (MODIS)
  • Processing levelLevel 4
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsHDF-EOS
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Map vegetation, forests and biomass
  • Monitor ecosystem productivity and carbon
  • Support habitat and biodiversity studies
Official description

The MODIS/Terra LAI-FPAR Phenology annual L4 Global 1km SIN Grid product with short-name MOD15A2PHN, is estimated from MCD15A2 8-day products. The spatial resolution is 1-km. The MOD15PHN is stored in Hierarchical Data Format (HDF) in sinusodial projection, same as other standard MODIS land products. For the first 11 phenology parameters, only the first two seasons (marked as s1 and s2) are stored if there are more than one valid seasonal cycles detected. Valid seasonal cycles should begin within the year of interest and end before the end of the second year. There are 27 Science Data Sets (SDS) in the available phenology product.

Get the data

mod15a2phn_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MOD15A2PHN",
    version="6",
    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.