MODIS/Terra Snow Cover 5-Min L2 Swath 500m, Version 5

Data Contributors

HALL, DOROTHY K.
SALOMONSON, VINCE V.
RIGGS, GEORGE A.

Parameters

LAKE ICE
RIVER ICE
SNOW COVER > Fractional Snow Cover, Fractional Snow Cover

Instruments

MODIS : MODERATE-RESOLUTION IMAGING SPECTRORADIOMETER

The MODIS/Terra Snow Cover 5-Min L2 Swath 500m (MOD10_L2) data set contains snow cover and Quality Assessment (QA) data, latitudes and longitudes in compressed Hierarchical Data Format-Earth Observing System (HDF-EOS) format, and corresponding metadata. Latitude and longitude geolocation fields are at 5 km resolution while all other fields are at 500 m resolution. Version 5 (V005), the latest version of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data available has two separate snow fields. The first field, snow cover, classifies each cloud-free land or inland water body pixel as snow-covered or snow-free, the second field, fractional snow cover, provides the percent of snow cover within each pixel for land and inland water bodies. MODIS snow cover data are based on a snow mapping algorithm that employs a Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) and other criteria tests. MODIS/Terra V005 data extend from 24 February 2000 to present; however, until reprocessing is complete in mid-2008 not all V005 data will be available. Data are available via FTP, CD-ROM, DLT, or DVD. Data can be obtained in GeoTIFF format by ordering the data through the Data Pool.

Until the reprocessing campaign is finished, the complete set of Version 4 (V004) data will remain available. Thus, if you need V004 documentation, please contact NSIDC User Services at http://nsidc.org/forms/contact.html.

Data Citation

The following example shows how to cite the use of this data set in a publication. List the principal investigators, year of data set release, data set title and version number, dates of the data you used (for example, December 2003 to March 2004), publisher: NSIDC, and digital media.

Hall, D. K., G. A. Riggs, and V. V. Salomonson. 2006, updated daily. MODIS/Terra snow cover 5-min L2 swath 500m V005, [list the dates of the data used]. Boulder, Colorado USA: National Snow and Ice Data Center. Digital media.