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Full catalog/MYD13C2
MYD13C2·v061·dataset

How green the land is (Aqua, monthly)

MODIS/Aqua Vegetation Indices Monthly L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG V061
biosphere NASA LPCLOUD Level 3 active HDF-EOS2
In plain English

What it measures. A monthly snapshot of how green and leafy the land is around the world, given as vegetation index values for each pixel. It includes the long-running NDVI greenness measure and the EVI, which works better in densely vegetated areas.

How it's made. Created from the MODIS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite, daily observations over a month are cloud-screened and combined into a single global gridded product at about 5.6 km resolution.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for tracking seasonal plant growth, droughts, deforestation, and crop conditions, and for comparing vegetation health over time across the globe.

What's measured

BIOSPHERE › VEGETATION › VEGETATION INDEXBIOSPHERE › VEGETATION › VEGETATION INDEX › NORMALIZED DIFFERENCE VEGETATION INDEX (NDVI)BIOSPHERE › VEGETATION › VEGETATION INDEX › ENHANCED VEGETATION INDEX (EVI)

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2002-07-01 → ongoing
  • Measured byAqua (MODIS)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsHDF-EOS2
  • 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 Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Vegetation Indices Monthly (MYD13C2) Version 6.1 product provides a Vegetation Index (VI) value at a per pixel basis. There are two primary vegetation layers. The first is the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) which is referred to as the continuity index to the existing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (NOAA-AVHRR) derived NDVI. The second vegetation layer is the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), which has improved sensitivity over high biomass regions. The Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) consists of 3,600 rows and 7,200 columns of 5,600 meter (m) pixels. In generating this monthly product, the algorithm ingests all the [MYD13A2](https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MYD13A2.061) products that overlap the month and employs a weighted temporal average. Global MYD13C1 data are cloud-free spatial composites and are provided as a Level 3 product projected on a 0.05 degree (5,600 m) geographic CMG. The MYD13C2 has data fields for the NDVI, EVI, VI QA, reflectance data, angular information, and spatial statistics such as mean, standard deviation, and number of used input pixels at the 0.05 degree CMG resolution. 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

myd13c2_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MYD13C2",
    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.