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Full catalog/modis-terra-mod17a2hgf
modis-terra-mod17a2hgf·dataset

Plant carbon capture, gap-filled 8-day (Terra)

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

What it measures. Same as the standard 8-day carbon-capture product, this tracks how much carbon plants absorb at 500-meter detail, but with poor or cloudy readings repaired. It also includes net photosynthesis.

How it's made. Produced by ESA Copernicus from NASA's MODIS sensor on Terra; gaps are filled by interpolation once the full year of leaf-cover data arrives, making it a cleaned-up, after-the-year Level-4 product rather than a live feed.

How & where you'd use it. Best for researchers needing smooth, consistent long-term records of plant productivity for carbon and climate analysis.

What's measured

MODISTerraNASASatelliteGlobalVegetationGPPGross Primary ProductivityCarbon500mMOD17A2HGF

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2000-01-01 → 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 Terra MOD17A2HGF Version 6.1 product provides a gap-filled 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), along with a quality control (QC) layer providing quality information for both variables. The gap-filled product is generated at the end of each year once the complete annual MOD15A2H LAI/FPAR dataset becomes available. Poor-quality LAI/FPAR inputs are identified using quality control flags and replaced through linear interpolation to improve data consistency. Consequently, the dataset is not available in near-real time and is produced only after the completion of the full yearly dataset.

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-mod17a2hgf"],   # 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.