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Full catalog/MYD11C2
MYD11C2·v061·dataset

How hot the land surface gets, 8-day (Aqua, 0.05°)

MODIS/Aqua Land Surface Temperature/Emissivity 8-Day L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG V061
land NASA LPCLOUD Level 3 active HDF-EOS2
In plain English

What it measures. How hot or cold the actual land surface is (its skin temperature), plus how efficiently it radiates heat, summarized over 8-day periods for day and night.

How it's made. Built from the MODIS instrument on the Aqua satellite by averaging the daily land-surface-temperature files onto a roughly 5 km global grid.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for monitoring heat patterns, drought, and climate, and for studies needing consistent land surface temperatures across the globe.

What's measured

LAND SURFACE › SURFACE RADIATIVE PROPERTIES › EMISSIVITYLAND SURFACE › SURFACE THERMAL PROPERTIES › LAND SURFACE TEMPERATURE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2002-07-04 → ongoing
  • Measured byAqua (MODIS)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsHDF-EOS2
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

The Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Land Surface Temperature/Emissivity 8-Day (MYD11C2) Version 6.1 product provides Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity (LST&E) values in a 0.05 degree (5,600 meters at the equator) latitude/longitude Climate Modeling Grid (CMG). A CMG granule follows a geographic grid with 7,200 columns and 3,600 rows, representing the entire globe. The LST&E values in the MYD11C2 product are derived by compositing and averaging the values from the corresponding eight [MYD11C1](https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MYD11C1.061) daily files. The MYD11C2 granule consists of 17 layers. Each MYD11C2 product consists of the following layers for daytime and nighttime observations: LSTs, quality control assessments, observation times, view zenith angles, and number of clear-sky observations along with percentage of land in the grid and emissivities from bands 20, 22, 23, 29, 31, and 32. Known Issues * For complete information about known issues please refer to the [MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website](https://landweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/knownissue?sensor=MODIS&sat=Aqua&as=61).

Get the data

myd11c2_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MYD11C2",
    version="061",
    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 LPCLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.