Development of an operational land water mask for MODIS Collection 6, and influence on downstream data products

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DevelopmentofanoperationallandwatermaskforMODISCollection6andinfluenceondownstreamdataproducts.pdf (3.43 MB)

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https://doi.org/10.1080/17538947.2016.1232756

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https://doi.org/10.1080/17538947.2016.1232756
 http://hdl.handle.net/11603/33385

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UMBC GESTAR II

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https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9149-1789

Date

2016-10-04

Type of Work

journal articles
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Program

Citation of Original Publication

Carroll, M. L., C. M. DiMiceli, J. R. G. Townshend, R. A. Sohlberg, A. I. Elders, S. Devadiga, A. M. Sayer, and R. C. Levy. “Development of an Operational Land Water Mask for MODIS Collection 6, and Influence on Downstream Data Products.” International Journal of Digital Earth 10, no. 2 (February 1, 2017): 207–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/17538947.2016.1232756.

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This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
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Subjects

Earth observation
image processing
land cover
remote sensing
water resources

Abstract

Data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer (MODIS) on-board the Earth Observing System Terra and Aqua satellites are processed using a land water mask to determine when an algorithm no longer needs to be run or when an algorithm needs to follow a different pathway. Entering the fourth reprocessing (Collection 6 (C6)) the MODIS team replaced the 1 km water mask with a 500 m water mask for improved representation of the continental surfaces. The new water mask represents more small water bodies for an overall increase in water surface from 1% to 2% of the continental surface. While this is still a small fraction of the overall global surface area the increase is more dramatic in certain areas such as the Arctic and Boreal regions where there are dramatic increases in water surface area in the new mask. MODIS products generated by the on-going C6 reprocessing using the new land water mask show significant impact in areas with high concentrations of change in the land water mask. Here differences between the Collection 5 (C5) and C6 water masks and the impact of these differences on the MOD04 aerosol product and the MOD11 land surface temperature product are shown.