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Full catalog/modis-terra-mod15a2h
modis-terra-mod15a2h·dataset

How much leaf cover and light plants absorb, 8-day (Terra)

MODIS Terra Leaf Area Index FPAR 8-Day L4 Global 500m
biosphere ESA ESA Copernicus active
In plain English

What it measures. It reports leaf area index, a measure of how much leaf surface covers the ground, and FPAR, the share of sunlight that green leaves absorb for photosynthesis. Both come at 500-meter detail as an 8-day best-view composite.

How it's made. Built by ESA Copernicus from NASA's MODIS instrument on Terra, choosing the best pixels over each 8-day window as a Level-4 product.

How & where you'd use it. Feeds crop, forest, and climate models, helps gauge canopy density and vegetation health, and underpins estimates of plant productivity.

What's measured

MODISTerraNASASatelliteGlobalVegetationLAIFPARLeaf Area Index500mMOD15A2H

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2000-02-18 → 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 Terra MOD15A2H Version 6.1 product provides an 8-day composite of Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Fraction of Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FPAR) at 500 m spatial resolution. The dataset is generated by selecting the best available pixel from all Terra MODIS acquisitions within the 8-day compositing period. LAI represents the one-sided green leaf area per unit ground area in broadleaf canopies and half the total needle surface area per unit ground area in coniferous canopies. FPAR describes the fraction of incoming photosynthetically active radiation (400-700 nm) absorbed by the green vegetation canopy. The Level-4 product includes science datasets for LAI and FPAR, two quality control layers, and standard deviation layers for both variables. Additionally, low-resolution browse images for LAI and FPAR are provided for each granule.

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-terra-mod15a2h"],   # 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.