High-Resolution Image

An ecosystem-dependent temporal interpolation technique has been developed to fill missing or seasonally snow-covered data in the official MODIS surface albedo product from the Terra satellite. The method imposes pixel-level and local regional ecosystem-dependent phenological behavior onto retrieved pixel temporal data in such a way as to maintain pixel-level spatial and spectral detail and integrity. The resulting snow-free value-added products provide the scientific community with spatially and temporally complete global white- and black-sky surface albedo maps and statistics. These products are stored on 1-min (~2 km) and coarser resolution equal-angle grids and are computed for the first seven MODIS wavelengths, ranging from 0.47-2.1 µm, and for three broadband wavelengths 0.3-0.7, 0.3-5.0, and 0.7-5.0 µm. This figure shows the result of this analysis of the spatially complete white-sky albedo at 0.86 µm after the temporal interpolation technique was applied for the 16-day periods of (a) January 1-16, (b) April 3-18, (c) July 12-27, and (d) September 30-October 14, 2002.

For more information, see Spatially Complete Global Spectral Surface Albedos: Value-Added Datasets Derived from Terra MODIS Land Products, by E. G. Moody, M. D. King, S. Platnick, C. B. Schaaf, and F. Gao, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 43 (1), 144-158, 2005.