Cloud Water Content (1 month - Terra/MODIS)

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Terra/MODIS Aqua/MODIS

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About this dataset

Basic Intermediate Advanced

Clouds are made up of trillions of tiny water droplets and ice crystals. Have you ever wondered how much water all those particles add up to? Of course, the answer is different for different types of clouds. Thin, wispy cirrus clouds contain much less water than thick, puffy-looking cumulus clouds. Scientists want to measure how much water is in a cloud because that information helps them to better understand where and how much water moves back and forth between Earth's surface and atmosphere. Knowing how much water is in a cloud also helps them to better estimate how much sunlight that cloud will reflect back into space and how much warmth that cloud traps near Earth's surface. Today, scientists use NASA satellites to measure how much water is in clouds all over the world. The colors on these maps show how many grams of water per square meter you would get if you squashed all the water out of the clouds into a flat layer on the ground. White areas show clouds with a lot of water, pink shades show less water, and purple shows little or no cloud water.

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October 2024

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1.0 degrees	360 x 180 download
0.5 degrees	720 x 360 download
0.25 degrees	1440 x 720 download
0.1 degrees	3600 x 1800 download
CSV for Excel older than 2007 download

Related Websites

MODIS

Terra

MODIS Atmosphere

MODIS on Earthdata

ATBD (Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document)

Cloud Retrieval Algorithms for MODIS: Optical Thickness, Effective Particle Radius, and Thermodynamic Phase

Credits

Imagery produced by the NASA Earth Observations team based on data provided by the MODIS Atmosphere Science Team, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Federal Geographic Data Committee Geospatial Metadata

View the FGDC Metatdata for Cloud Water Content (1 month - Terra/MODIS)

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