The Earth Observing System [1] initiated high quality global Earth observations and operational aerosol retrievals over land. With the wide swath (2300 km) of MODIS instrument, the MODIS Dark Target algorithm [2-3] currently complemented with the Deep Blue method [4] provides daily global view of planetary atmospheric aerosol. With MODIS aerosol program being very successful, there are still se...

The EOS-TERRA MODIS and MISR instruments provide radiances for independent spectral and stereo retrievals of cloud top height (CTH), respectively. Collocated and coincident CTH retrievals were compared against each other and with coincident millimeter-wave radar (MMCR) retrievals over the British Isles and the ARM SGP site. This intercomparison suggests close agreement between MMCRR, MODIS and ...

Globally acquired data from both MODIS instruments are suitable for science quality time series, because the unique concept of pixel-level quality information of each MODIS land product allows a detailed analysis of the data usability. MODIS datasets are regularly updated and reprocessed to meet present science requirements. This study compares time series of present collection 4 and currently ...

Leaf area index collected in a needle-leaf forest site near Ruokolahti, Finland, during a field campaign in June 14-21, 2000, was used to validate Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) LAI and FPAR algorithm. The field LAI data was first related to 30m resolution Enhanced Thermal Mapper Plus (ETM+) images using empirical methods to create a high resolution LAI map. It shows that...

This work modelled the spatial distribution of the rodent species that act as hosts in the transmission cycle of the parasitic tapeworm Echinococcus multilocularis. The rodent distribution was modelled in relation to landscape characteristics in four ways, using (1) a Landsat ETM+ derived hard classification, (2) single-image Landsat ETM+ derived NDVI, (3) single-image MODIS 16-day composite ND...

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board the NASA Terra satellite has been collecting global data since March 2000 and the one on the Aqua satellite since June 2002. In this paper, cirrus cloud properties derived from ground-based remote sensing data are compared with similar cloud properties derived from MODIS data on Terra. To improve the space–time correlation betwe...

In this work, the water vapor product from MODIS (MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument, on-board Aqua and Terra satellites, is compared against GPS water vapor data from 21 stations in the Iberian Peninsula as reference. GPS water vapor data is obtained from ground-based receiver stations which measure the delay caused by water vapor in the GPS microwave signals. The study ...

The newly released MODIS Collection 6 aerosol products have been widely used to evaluate fine particulate matter with a 10 km Dark Target aerosol optic depth (DT AOD) product, a new 3 km DT AOD product and an enhanced Deep Blue (DB) AOD product. However, the representativeness of MODIS AOD products under different air quality conditions remains unclear. In this study, we obtained all three type...

The increasingly intensive and extensive coal mining activities on the Loess Plateau pose a threat to the fragile local ecosystems. Quantifying the effects of coal mining activities on environmental conditions is of great interest for restoring and managing the local ecosystems and resources. This paper generates dense NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) time series between 2000 and 2...

BACKGROUND Remotely-sensed environmental data from earth-orbiting satellites are increasingly used to model the distribution and abundance of both plant and animal species, especially those of economic or conservation importance. Time series of data from the MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors on-board NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites offer the potential to capture env...