True Color - Surface Reflectance (MODIS / Aqua)

Overview and Intended Use This visualization represents a "true color" band combination (Red = 1, Green = 4, Blue = 3) of data collected by the MODIS instrument on the NASA [Aqua] satellite. The imagery represents a natural looking view of the Earth's surface without the presence of aerosols (e.g. clouds and dust). At its highest resolution, this visualization represents the underlying data scaled to a resolution of 500m per pixel at the equator. The MODIS Surface Reflectance product is created by an atmospheric correction algorithm that includes aerosol correction and is designed to derive land surface properties. By contrast, the MODIS Corrected Reflectance product, which is also available in the Living Atlas, provides more natural-looking images by only removing gross atmospheric effects such as Rayleigh scattering from the visible bands. In clear atmospheric conditions the Corrected Reflectance product is similar to the Surface Reflectance product, but they depart from each other in the presence of aerosols. Multi-Spectral Bands The following table lists the MODIS bands that are utilized to create this visualization. See [here] for a full description of all MODIS bands. ────┬─────────────────┬─────────────────┬────────────── Band│Description │Wavelength (µm) │Resolution (m) │ │ │ ────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┼────────────── 1 │Visible (Red) │0.620 - 0.670 │250 │ │ │ ────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┼────────────── 3 │Visible (Blue) │0.459 - 0.479 │500 │ │ │ ────┼─────────────────┼─────────────────┼────────────── 4 │Visible (Green) │0.545 - 0.565 │500 │ │ │ ────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┴────────────── Temporal Coverage By default, this layer will display the imagery currently available for today’s date. The update frequency of the imagery is a "daily composite" that is assembled from hundreds of individual data files. When viewing imagery for “today,” you may notice that only a portion of the map has imagery. This is because the visualization is continually updated as the satellite collects more data. To view imagery over time, you can update the layer properties to [enable time animation] and [configure time settings]. The current version of this layer is available from present back to the start of the mission (July 3rd, 2002). Source: NASA Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), NASA Worldview, & NASA LANCE This visualization is provided through the [NASA Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS)], which are a set of standard services to deliver global, full-resolution satellite imagery for hundreds of NASA Earth science datasets and science parameters. Through its services, and the [NASA Worldview] client, GIBS enables interactive exploration of NASA's Earth imagery for a broad range of users. The data and imagery are generated within 3 hours of acquisition through the [NASA LANCE] capability. Esri and NASA Collaborative Services This visualization is made available through an ArcGIS image service hosted on Esri servers and facilitates access to a NASA GIBS service endpoint. For each image service request, the Esri server issues multiple requests to the GIBS service, processes and assembles the responses, and returns a proper mosaic image to the user. Processing occurs on-the-fly for each and every request to ensure that any update to the GIBS imagery is immediately available to the user. As such, availability of this visualization is dependent on both the Esri and the NASA GIBS services.