5.2
The MODIS BRDF/Albedo Products for Climate Studies
Crystal B. Schaaf, Boston University, Boston, MA; and F. Gao, A. Strahler, X. Li, J. Salomon, X. Zhang, J. C. F. Hodges, and E. Tsvetsinskaya
Reprocessed MODIS BRDF/Albedo Products from the Terra platform are now available from March 2000 to present (Collection V004). BRDF model parameters, white-sky albedo, black-sky albedo at local solar noon, and Nadir BRDF-Adjusted Reflectance (NBAR) are all provided. In addition to the 1km standard products, which are released in a sinusoidal projection in 10degree tiles, global files in a geographic projection at a 0.05degree spatial resolution are produced specifically for the modeling community. Recently completed statistics of the 0.05degree albedo products by land surface type and latitude and the temporal variation of these data (designated as the Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) products) will be presented. These results emphasize the importance of adequately modeling the spatial variability of albedo across the globe. The CMG products (MOD43C) are averaged from the 1km data and assigned a quality flag representative of the majority of the underlying pixels. A discussion of the differences to be expected between high quality data and all-quality data will demonstrate the importance of using the quality flags - especially in areas of persistent cloud cover and ephemeral snow cover. A second version of the product is now being produced which uses data from both the Terra and Aqua MODIS instruments (MCD43). Comparisons demonstrate how the addition of supplementary cloud-free surface observations from Aqua improve the sampling of the surface anisotropy and lead to a larger overall number of high quality full inversion retrievals across the globe. At the conclusion of the discussion on the V004 reprocessed MODIS BRDF/Albedo data currently available to the modeling community, a presentation of the enhancements expected in the V005 reprocessing will also be included. .
Session 5, Land Surface Albedo and Its Impacts on Surface Climate (parallel with Joint Session 8)
Thursday, 13 January 2005, 8:30 AM-12:00 PM
Previous paper Next paper