Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/modis-aqua-myd17a2h
modis-aqua-myd17a2h·dataset

How much carbon plants capture, every 8 days (Aqua)

MODIS Aqua Gross Primary Productivity 8-Day L4 Global 500m
biosphere ESA ESA Copernicus active
In plain English

What it measures. It tracks gross primary productivity, which is how much carbon dioxide green plants pull from the air through photosynthesis. Each map cell covers about 500 meters and adds up the total over an 8-day window, and also reports net photosynthesis after subtracting what plants use just to stay alive.

How it's made. Built by ESA Copernicus from NASA's MODIS instrument aboard the Aqua satellite, using a light-use-efficiency model and delivered as a processed Level-4 product.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for scientists studying the carbon cycle, climate, and how forests and farmland take up CO2, and for spotting droughts or growing seasons that boost or suppress plant growth.

What's measured

MODISAquaNASASatelliteGlobalVegetationGPPGross Primary ProductivityCarbon500mMYD17A2H

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2021-01-01 → ongoing
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90

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 Aqua MYD17A2H Version 6.1 product provides an 8-day cumulative composite of Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) at 500 m spatial resolution. The dataset is based on the radiation use efficiency concept and can be used as input for models analyzing terrestrial energy balance, carbon and water cycles, and vegetation biogeochemistry. In addition to GPP, the product includes Net Photosynthesis (PSN), calculated as GPP minus Maintenance Respiration (MR). The dataset also contains a PSN Quality Control (QC) layer that provides quality information for both the GPP and PSN variables.

Get the data

copernicus_access.py
# ESA Copernicus Data Space — open STAC API (free account)
from pystac_client import Client

cat = Client.open("https://stac.dataspace.copernicus.eu/v1")
search = cat.search(
    collections=["modis-aqua-myd17a2h"],   # add _cog or _nc for a format variant
    bbox=(-10, 35, 30, 60),             # your area (W,S,E,N)
    datetime="2024-01-01/2024-12-31",
)
items = list(search.items())            # then read assets with rioxarray / xarray
Browsing the Copernicus STAC is open; downloading bytes needs a free Copernicus Data Space account.