Average Land Surface Temperature [Day] (1 month)
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About this dataset
Land surface temperature is how hot the ground feels to the touch. If you want to know whether temperatures at some place at a specific time of year are unusually warm or cold, you need to compare them to the average temperatures for that place over many years. These maps show the average weekly or monthly daytime land surface temperatures for 2001-2010.
What do the colors mean?
The colors on these maps represent temperature patterns of the top millimeter (or “skin”) of the land surface — including bare land, snow or ice cover, urban areas, and cropland or forest canopy — as observed by MODIS in clear-sky conditions for the time period indicated. Yellow shows the warmest temperatures (up to 45°C) and light blue shows the coldest temperatures (down to -25°C). Black means “no data.”
Get Data
1. Visit LP DAAC for daily/ 8 day/ monthly data:
MOD11C1 (daily),
MOD11C2 (8-day),
MOD11C3 (monthly)
2. Select Access Data and choose one of the tools available to download the data you need
Related Websites
Further Reading
Terra Data Confirm Warm Dry US Winter
Hottest Spot
Baked Alaska
Heat Broils the American Southwest
Alaska Hit with a Hot March
Heat and Fire Scorches Siberia
Credits
Images by the NASA Earth Observations (NEO) team using data courtesy of the Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LPDAAC) and the MODIS Land Science Team.
Federal Geographic Data Committee Geospatial Metadata
View the FGDC Metatdata for Average Land Surface Temperature [Day] (1 month)