Earth Science Data Roundup: February 2025

Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC)

CMS-Flux Global Fire Carbon Emissions Product Now Available

NASA’s GES DISC released version 1 of the Global Fire Carbon Emissions product, based on top-down Carbon Monitoring System Flux (CMS-Flux) inversions assimilating satellite observations of atmospheric carbon monoxide. This dataset contains global estimates of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide fluxes, constrained by observations from the Measurements of Pollution In The Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite and the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) instrument aboard the European Space Agency's (ESA) Sentinel-5P spacecraft.

Access Global Fire Carbon Emissions data and more information

Aqua Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) Level 1B Version 8  Dataset Released

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) Science Team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and GES DISC released Version 8 of the AIRS Level 1B data product, which consists of calibrated radiances, geolocation coordinates, quality control parameters, and calibration engineering support information. 

The differences between this version (Version 8) and the previous version (Version 5) are, according to GES DISC, “extremely small and not significant for most applications,” however the improvements in Version 8 may have relevance for certain climate applications. 

The Version 8 AIRS data product is now in netCDF4 format, in contrast to the HDF-EOS format used earlier. The identifiers for fields and attributes have been made more consistent internally and with NASA Sounder Science Investigator-led Processing Systems (SIPS) products, including Crosstrack Infrared Sounder (CrIS), and Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) Level 1 data products.

Access AIRS Level 1B data and more information

Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC)

LP DAAC Releases VIIRS Version 2 Day/Night Band BRDF/Albedo Model Parameter Data Products 

NASA’s LP DAAC released the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Version 2 Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF)/Albedo at 1-kilometer resolution for the Day/Night Band (DNBA) product suite, which includes data products from both the joint NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) and NOAA-20 satellites.

The release includes eight products offering model parameters (isotropic, volumetric, and geometric), quality, white-sky albedos (WSA), black-sky albedos (BSA), and Nadir BRDF-Adjusted Reflectance (NBAR). They are: 

• VIIRS/JPSS1 DNB BRDF/Albedo Model Parameters Daily L3 Global 1 km SIN Grid
• VIIRS/JPSS1 DNB BRDF/Albedo Quality Daily L3 Global 1 km SIN Grid
• VIIRS/JPSS1 DNB BRDF/Albedo Albedo Daily L3 Global 1 km SIN Grid
• VIIRS/JPSS1 DNB BRDF/Albedo Nadir BRDF-Adjusted Ref Daily L3 Global 1 km SIN Grid
• VIIRS/NPP DNB BRDF/Albedo Model Parameters Daily L3 Global 1 km SIN Grid
• VIIRS/NPP DNB BRDF/Albedo Quality Daily L3 Global 1 km SIN Grid
• VIIRS/NPP DNB BRDF/Albedo Albedo Daily L3 Global 1 km SIN Grid
• VIIRS/NPP DNB BRDF/Albedo Nadir BRDF-Adjusted Ref Daily L3 Global 1 km SIN Grid

Access VIIRS Version 2 Day/Night Band BRDF/Albedo Model Parameter data and more information

AppEEARS Version 3.69 Now Available

Version 3.69 of the Application for Extracting and Exploring Analysis Ready Samples (AppEEARS) is now available from the LP DAAC. This release adds the “AverageSolarZenith” and “GeolocationAccuracyQA” attributes to outputs generated from the Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on the Space Station (ECOSTRESS) Version 2 swath products, including the ECOSTRESS Swath Geolocation Instantaneous Level 1B Global 70-meter (m), ECOSTRESS Swath Cloud Mask Instantaneous Level 2 Global 70m, and ECOSTRESS Swath Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity Instantaneous Level 2 Global 70m products. These new attributes are now available alongside the existing “OrbitCorrectionPerformed” attribute.

AppEEARS offers a simple and efficient way to perform data access and transformation processes by enabling users to download only the data they need. AppEEARS provides access to a wide range of geospatial data from multiple federal archives, including ECOSTRESS, the Soil Moisture Active Passive mission, Daymet gridded weather parameters, Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Global Digital Elevation Model Version 3, and population information from the Gridded Population of the World collection.

Learn more about the release of AppEEARS Version 3.69

Level 1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System Distributed Active Archive Center (LAADS DAAC)

Soft Release of VIIRS Nighttime Lights Products

NASA’s LAADS DAAC has executed a soft release of four Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Nighttime Lights products—two from the VIIRS instrument aboard the joint NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP/SNPP) satellite and two from the VIIRS instrument aboard the NOAA-20 satellite. 

A “soft release” means that users can directly access and download these data products but cannot search for or discover them via LAADS DAAC's search and order interface or through Earthdata Search.

The products included in this release are:

• SNPP VIIRS Daily at-Sensor Top-of-Atmosphere Nighttime Lights
• SNPP VIIRS Daily Moonlight-adjusted Nighttime Lights
• NOAA-20 VIIRS Daily at-Sensor Top-of-Atmosphere Nighttime Lights
• NOAA-20 VIIRS Daily Moonlight-adjusted Nighttime 

These Version 2.0 collection products contain several changes and differences relative to the previous Version 1.0 collection. Users can learn more about the changes on the LAADS DAAC website via the link below.

Access VIIRS Nighttime Lights products and more information

Suomi NPP Version 1 VIIRS Land Product Collections Decommissioned

NASA's LAADS DAAC has decommissioned all Version 1 Suomi NPP VIIRS land product collections as of January 22, 2025. Users are advised to switch to the Version 2.0 land product collections, which benefit from the VIIRS Characterization Support Team's improvements to the calibration algorithm and cross calibration with respect to the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite and the VIIRS instrument aboard NOAA-20. 

Learn more about the decommissioning of Version 1 Suomi NPP VIIRS land product collections

Production of Suomi NPP VIIRS  Version 1.0 Black Marble Products to Stop after January 31

LAADS DAAC announced that the VIIRS Black Marble products will be discontinue production of Suomi NPP VIIRS Version 1.0 products after January 31, 2025. These Version 1.0 products (from January 19, 2012, through January 31, 2025) will remain available in the LAADS DAAC archive until September 30, 2025, but no new SNPP VIIRS Version 1.0 Black Marble products will be produced after that date. 

Learn more about the discontinued VIIRS Black Marble products

National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC)

SnowEx23 October 22 Ground Surface Roughness Reconstruction and Corresponding Imagery Datasets Released

NASA's NSIDC DAAC released the SnowEx23 October22 Ground Surface Roughness Reconstruction, Version 1 and SnowEx23 October 22 Ground Surface Roughness Imagery, Version 1 datasets. These datasets contain ground surface roughness data and the corresponding imagery collected during the NASA SnowEx 2023 field campaign, which took place from October 23 to 25, 2022. The data are formatted as point clouds, compiled from images acquired using a digital camera. Images were collected from 13 snow pits located at the Upper Kuparuk and Toolik study site, an arctic tundra environment in northern Alaska.

Access SnowEX October 22 Ground Surface Roughness Reconstruction and Corresponding Imagery data and more information

SnowEx23 October23 Ground Surface Roughness Reconstruction and Corresponding Imagery Datasets Now Available

The SnowEx23 October 23 Ground Surface Roughness Reconstruction, Version 1 and SnowEx23 October 23 Ground Surface Roughness Imagery, Version 1 datasets are now available from NASA's NSIDC DAAC. These datasets contain ground surface roughness data and the corresponding imagery collected during the NASA SnowEx 2023 field campaign between October 17 and 28, 2023. The data are formatted as point clouds, compiled from images acquired using a digital camera. Images were collected from 22 snow pits located across three study sites: Upper Kuparuk and Toolik in Northern Alaska, Caribou Poker Creek watershed, and Farmers Loop Creamers Field near Fairbanks, Alaska.

Access SnowEx23 October23 Ground Surface Roughness Reconstruction and Corresponding Imagery data and more information

New NASA Earthdata Cloud Access Option for the Aquarius Collection Available 

NASA's NSIDC DAAC added 12 datasets from the Aquarius collection to NASA’s Earthdata Cloud on January 28, 2025. The Earthdata Cloud is NASA’s archive of Earth observations, hosted in Amazon Web Services (AWS). The Earthdata Cloud HTTPS data access URL will be available from each dataset landing page using the HTTPS File System link under Data Access & Tools after the publication date.

The URL for access to the legacy HTTPS File System will be removed from the data set landing page when the data are added to Earthdata Cloud. However, users will continue to find legacy HTTPS URLs in the Programmatic Data Access Guide.

Learn more about the addition of the Aquarius collection to NASAs’ Earthdata Cloud

SMAPVEX19-22 Massachusetts/Millbrook UAVSAR Mosaics Datasets Now Available

The SMAPVEX19-22 Massachusetts/Millbrook UAVSAR Mosaics, Version 1 datasets are now available from NSIDC DAAC. These datasets consist of mosaicked Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) images corrected for terrain-flattened gamma. Data image files at three different polarization configurations were composited daily between April and July 2022 in the vicinity of Millbrook, New York, and Petersham, Massachusetts, during the Soil Moisture Active Passive Validation Experiment 2019-2022 (SMAPVEX19-22) field campaign.

Access SMAPVEX19-22 Massachusetts/Millbrook UAVSAR Mosaics data and more information

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center (ORNL DAAC)

GEDI Level 4C Footprint Level Waveform Structural Complexity Index, Version 2 Released

NASA's ORNL DAAC released the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) Level 4C Version 2 dataset, which provides predictions of the Waveform Structural Complexity Index (WSCI) and estimates of prediction intervals for each footprint estimate at 95% confidence. The footprints are located within the global latitude band observed by the International Space Station, nominally 51.6 degrees N and S and reported for the period April 17, 2019, to March 16, 2023. The data are provided in HDF5 format.

Access GEDI Level 4C WSCI data and more information

Delta-X: Feldspar Sediment Accretion Measurements, Mississippi River Delta (MRD), Louisiana 2019-2023, Version 4 Dataset Now Available

The Feldspar Sediment Accretion Measurements, MRD, LA 2019-2023, Version 4 Dataset from the Delta-X Field Campaign is now available from NASA's ORNL DAAC. This dataset provides elevation, hydrogeomorphic zone classification, soil carbon content, bulk density, organic matter content, and sediment accretion measurements collected at feldspar stations established near Louisiana's Coastwide Reference Monitoring Systems (CRMS) sites and on Mike Island in Wax Lake Delta (WLD). The data cover the Delta-X field studies conducted from Fall 2020 through Fall 2023 and the data are provided in comma-separated values (CSV) format.

The Delta-X mission is a 5-year NASA Earth Venture Suborbital-3 mission to study the Mississippi River Delta in the United States, which is growing and sinking in different areas. River deltas and their wetlands are drowning as a result of sea level rise and reduced sediment inputs. The Delta-X mission will determine which parts will survive and continue to grow, and which parts will be lost. Delta-X begins with airborne and in-situ data acquisition and carries through data analysis, model integration, and validation to predict the extent and spatial patterns of future deltaic land loss or gain.

Access Delta-X: Feldspar Sediment Accretion Measurements data and more information

Delta-X: Sediment Core Grain Size Distribution, Wax Lake Delta, Mississippi River Delta (MRD), Louisiana Dataset Released

ORNL DAAC released the Delta-X: Sediment Core Grain Size Distribution, Wax Lake Delta, Mississippi River Delta (MRD), Louisiana (LA) dataset, which provides grain size distribution measurements collected from sediment core samples on Mike Island in the Wax Lake Delta, Louisiana, as part of the Delta-X spring  campaign in March 2021 and the fall campaign in August 2021. The data are for March 26 and 29, and August 18 and 24, and are provided in comma separated values (CSV) format.

Access Delta-X Sediment Core Grain Size Distribution data and more information

AVIRIS-3 Level 2A Orthocorrected Surface Reflectance, Facility Instrument Collection Dataset Now Available

The Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer-3 (AVIRIS-3) Level 2A Orthocorrected Surface Reflectance, Facility Instrument Collection Dataset is now available from NASA's ORNL DAAC. This dataset contains Level 2A surface reflectance images from the AVIRIS-3 instrument, a spectral mapping system that measures reflected radiance at 7.4-nm intervals in the Visible to Shortwave Infrared (VSWIR) spectral range from 390-2500 nanometers. For each flight line, two file types are included: orthocorrected surface reflectance and orthocorrected reflectance uncertainty in netCDF format. Both file types include data projected in a UTM coordinate system. In addition, ancillary files for each flight line are provided, including a quick look image in GeoTIFF format and text files in YAML format that document processing algorithms and parameters used during production.

Access AVIRIS-3 Level 2A Orthocorrected Surface Reflectance data and more information

Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC)

Africa Climate Mobility Initiative (ACMI): Bilateral Migration Projections Dataset Released

NASA’s SEDAC released the Africa Climate Mobility Initiative (ACMI): Bilateral Migration Projections dataset, which provides projections of bilateral migration flows at 5-year intervals from 2015 to 2050 for a combination of two sets of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) scenarios and three sets of Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) scenarios. The unit of analysis for the projections are directed migration corridors from an origin country to a receiving country in the African continent. There are 46 African countries and therefore 2,070 unique directed corridors. These data underpin the African Shifts Report, both produced by the ACMI enabled by the Global Centre for Climate Mobility (GCCM). 

Access Africa Climate Mobility Initiative (ACMI): Bilateral Migration Projections data and more information