Data-like File Formats: CSV and floating point GeoTIFFs : NASA Earth Observations (NEO)

Data-like File Formats: CSV and floating point GeoTIFFs

December 23rd, 2013 by Kevin Ward

In addition to the standard file formats that we support in NEO—JPEG, PNG, GeoTIFF, and GoogleEarth—many (not all) datasets support two additional “data-like” formats: CSV (comma-separated values) and floating point GeoTIFF. When you choose one of these formats for download, there are a few details that should be taken into consideration.

The values that these files contain have been scaled and resampled for visualization purposes in NEO and should not be considered for rigorous scientific examination. At best they are useful for basic analysis and trend detection but if you are interested in conducting research-level science we recommend that you use the original source data (which are not hosted by NEO, but we can assist you in identifying the source).
CSV files can get quite large at full resolution. For example, a 3600×1800 CSV file can get to around 61MB. If your software has difficulty opening a file of that size then please select a smaller resolution (e.g., 1440×720).
There are two flavors of CSV available in NEO:
1. “Regular” CSV which includes the text-only values at the resolution the user specifies. This format is suitable for Excel (2007 and later) and many other applications.
2. “CSV for Excel” In Excel versions prior to 2007, worksheets could not support more than 256 columns. To remedy this, this format option is resized to 250×125. The first row contains the longitude values for the center of the cell and the first column contains the latitudes.
Floating point GeoTIFFs contain 32-bit numerical data along with the geolocation information that is standard for the Geo format. These files can also get large as they are not internally compressed—e.g., a 3600×1800 GeoTIFF can be around 25MB.

These formats are not available by default in our archive but if you are interested in obtaining a long time series of a dataset in one of these formats, please contact us and we can perform a customized export to the ftp site in the format you need.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 23rd, 2013 at 12:59 pm and is filed under Services. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

52 responses to “Data-like File Formats: CSV and floating point GeoTIFFs”

Kevin Ward says:

October 10, 2017 at 5:14 pm

Hello Douglas,

The only source that includes data going back that far is the DMSP-OLS nighttime lights product from NOAA:

https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/eog/dmsp/downloadV4composites.html
Alvise Aranyossy says:

January 29, 2018 at 7:05 am

Hello,
I am interested in the daily land surface temperature in Italy from 2007 to 2017, however in the MODIS portal I can’t find the files in csv format for my period in exam. Could you advise me where to find them?

Alvise
LAL MOHAMMAD says:

February 5, 2018 at 8:09 am

Hello
I would like to do some scientific research at India, so I would like to use the MODIS Land Surface Temperature, Aerosol Optical Depth, Vegetation Index and Rain Fall data from 2000 to 2017.
Where can I find rigorous research level data for these parameters?
Thanks
Lal Mohammad
Michael Cheeseman says:

May 31, 2018 at 10:42 pm

Hi!
I am trying to conduct research on 0.5 Degree MODIS LAI data. Is there anywhere else I can get preprocessed 0.5D data that can be used for rigorous science?

Thank you!
Kevin Ward says:

June 8, 2018 at 8:02 pm

Hello Michael,

The production data (HDF) can be found at https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/dataset_discovery/modis/modis_products_table/mod15a2h_v006

You might also try using the AppEEARS online analysis tool which gives you the ability to work with the source data without needing to download the data. AppEEARS does focus more on regional/subset analysis but it is probably worth a perusal: https://lpdaacsvc.cr.usgs.gov/appeears/
Patricio Fernandez says:

July 3, 2018 at 7:36 am

Hi,

Is there a possible way to get the chlorophyll concentration data by day, instead of having it grouped by week/month. Can you refer me to the source?

Many thanks,

Patricio
Kevin Ward says:

July 3, 2018 at 7:30 pm

Hello Patricio,

The daily chlorophyll data can be found through the NASA OceanColor website (where you can also find the source weekly and monthly data we use for NEO).

Kevin
Andy Scholand says:

July 30, 2018 at 12:07 am

Hi Kevin,

Thanks to you and your group for making these data available in such conveniently accessible formats, I really appreciate it. I would like to ask about the daily AOD floating point geotiff data. The algorithm theoretical basis document shows AOD values up to 3 (for example, Figure 29), but values above 1 appear quite rare according to that figure. The maximum AOD in the geotiff format appears to be 1. Were values above 1 truncated? Or should the values in the geotiff be scaled up by a factor of 3? Or is there some other conversion formula available?

Cheers,
Andy
Gabriel Evangelista says:

August 16, 2018 at 9:26 pm

Hello,

I am doing a research Internship at the California Institute of Energy and Environment. My colleagues and I are very interested in obtaining the HOURLY data of Cloud Fraction in Mexico City. The daily data is available in the CSV documents and we were hoping to obtain this very same information on hourly basis, mainly for the year 2017. Is there any place we could ask for this data?

Thanks!
Kevin Ward says:

August 17, 2018 at 8:01 pm

Hello Andy,

In order to produce the best visual product we have constrained the maximum value we show for the data to 1.0, but the source data would have the full range of values.

Kevin
Kevin Ward says:

August 17, 2018 at 8:05 pm

Hello Gabriel,

NASA cloud fraction data is only available daily, at best, due to the frequency of the satellite overpasses. More frequent data would have to come from a geosynchronous satellite such as GOES, but those data would most likely be limited to just over the continental United States.

Kevin
Gabriel Evangelista says:

August 21, 2018 at 2:18 pm

Hello again Kevin,

It is sad for our research to know this; nevertheless, thank you very much for your response.
By the way , you were right, GOES is limited to just over the continental US.

Gabriel.
Juan Acero says:

July 15, 2019 at 7:20 pm

How can I download the entire dataset for monthly values without doing it one image at a time?
Kram says:

August 12, 2019 at 11:33 pm

Hi,
Grateful, I am trying to do a statistical evaluation of GDP estimates derived from nightlights.
But I have no idea of remote sensing. How do I get the compressed dmsp data into excel to enable me proceed, please
Gabriel Martin says:

August 30, 2019 at 2:02 pm

Hello,
I am looking for a GeoTiff image of active fires at 0.5 degrees with fire information for August 2019, to work in a combined analysis of South American marsupial species richness also at 0.5 degrees. Does the file in your download page have that resolution and is it accurate enough for scientific research? Could you point me to the website where the data can be downloaded? Many thanks, Gabriel
Nanou Bao says:

January 10, 2020 at 6:26 am

hello, Kevin Ward.

i’m a master candidate of xiamen university, and my researching interest is the relationships between plankton and carbon dioxide, UV and other facters related to global climate change. now, i have been working on my paper which i need some global data of those environmental factors to introduce the necessary background, such as UV, solar irradiance and so on. it is so lucky that i could find those date here, however, how could i cite those data in my paper appropriately.

thank you!
Juefei Li says:

February 14, 2020 at 9:53 am

Hello,
Thanks for this convenient platform that gives access to a rich collection of datas. The only question I have here is that how can I use the CSV file. I mean, there’s no marks that tell me the corresponding latitude and longitude. Also, I wonder if there are subsets of data which only includes one part of the global ocean (e.g. Pacific ocean).
Thanks so much for your help.
Juefei Li says:

February 14, 2020 at 9:12 pm

Hello again,
I’m working on a school program that wants us to predict the sea surface temperature in the future. My main concern now is that how can I link the color with the temperature. Can you help me with that?
Thank you so much for your help!
Bianca Smuts says:

July 1, 2020 at 10:56 am

Hi,

I would like to use some of your data for my dissertation I am writing. Can you help connect me to the original source data for these topics:
• Surface temperature (day and night) – not the averages
• Leaf Area index
• Solar insolation
• Net primary productivity
I only need a decade from 2006 to 2016.

Thanks
Thomas Leirvik says:

July 9, 2020 at 7:15 am

Hi,

Is it possible to download a csv file (or other format, for example .nc). of Aerosol Optical Depth for a time period in a 0.5×0.5 grid format? For example monthly data from 1980 through 2019 for all grids on Earth?
Data is to be used in research.

Best,

Thomas