MOD11A2.061 Terra Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity 8-Day Global 1km

Page Summary

• The MOD11A2 V6.1 product provides an average 8-day land surface temperature (LST) in a 1200 x 1200 kilometer grid.

• Data is available from 2000-02-18 to 2025-10-08 with an 8-day cadence.

• The dataset includes bands for day and night land surface temperature, quality indicators, view time and angle, emissivity, and clear sky conditions.

• MODIS data and products acquired through the LP DAAC have no restrictions on subsequent use, sale, or redistribution.

Dataset Availability

2000-02-18T00:00:00Z–2026-04-07T00:00:00Z

Dataset Producer

NASA LP DAAC at the USGS EROS Center

Earth Engine Snippet

ee.ImageCollection("MODIS/061/MOD11A2")

Cadence

8 Days

Tags

8-day climate emissivity global lst mod11a2 modis nasa surface-temperature terra usgs

Description

The MOD11A2 V6.1 product provides an average 8-day land surface temperature (LST) in a 1200 x 1200 kilometer grid. Each pixel value in MOD11A2 is a simple average of all the corresponding MOD11A1 LST pixels collected within that 8 day period. The MOD11A2 does a simple averaging of all daily LST values, without any filtering for specific QA bits. Each of the MOD11A2 QA values are set based on what majority of input daily QA values are for any given pixel.

The 8 day compositing period was chosen because twice that period is the exact ground track repeat period of the Terra and Aqua platforms. In this product, along with both the day- and night-time surface temperature bands and their quality indicator (QC) layers, are also MODIS bands 31 and 32 and eight observation layers.

Documentation:

• User's Guide

• Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD)

• General Documentation

Bands

Bands

Pixel size: 1000 meters (all bands)

Name	Units	Min	Max	Scale	Offset	Pixel Size	Description
LST_Day_1km	K	7500	65535	0.02		1000 meters	Day land surface temperature
QC_Day						1000 meters	Daytime LST quality indicators
Bitmask for QC_Day Bits 0-1: Mandatory QA flags 0: Pixel produced, good quality, not necessary to examine more detailed QA 1: Pixel produced, unreliable or unquantifiable quality, recommend examination of more detailed QA 2: Pixel not produced due to cloud effects 3: Pixel not produced primarily due to reasons other than cloud (such as ocean pixel, poor input data) Bits 2-3: Data quality flag 0: Good data quality 1: Other quality data 2: TBD 3: TBD Bits 4-5: Emissivity error flag 0: Average emissivity error <= 0.01 1: Average emissivity error <= 0.02 2: Average emissivity error <= 0.04 3: Average emissivity error > 0.04 Bits 6-7: LST error flag 0: Average LST error <= 1K 1: Average LST error <= 2K 2: Average LST error <= 3K 3: Average LST error > 3K
Day_view_time	h	0	240	0.1		1000 meters	Local time of day observation
Day_view_angl	deg	0	130		-65	1000 meters	View zenith angle of day observation
LST_Night_1km	K	7500	65635	0.02		1000 meters	Night land surface temperature
QC_Night						1000 meters	Nighttime LST quality indicators
Bitmask for QC_Night Bits 0-1: Mandatory QA flags 0: Pixel produced, good quality, not necessary to examine more detailed QA 1: Pixel produced, unreliable or unquantifiable quality, recommend examination of more detailed QA 2: Pixel not produced due to cloud effects 3: Pixel not produced primarily due to reasons other than cloud (such as ocean pixel, poor input data) Bits 2-3: Data quality flag 0: Good data quality 1: Other quality data 2: TBD 3: TBD Bits 4-5: Emissivity error flag 0: Average emissivity error <= 0.01 1: Average emissivity error <= 0.02 2: Average emissivity error <= 0.04 3: Average emissivity error > 0.04 Bits 6-7: LST error flag 0: Average LST error <= 1K 1: Average LST error <= 2K 2: Average LST error <= 3K 3: Average LST error > 3K
Night_view_time	h	0	240	0.1		1000 meters	Local time of night observation
Night_view_angl	deg	0	130		-65	1000 meters	View zenith angle of night observation
Emis_31		1	255	0.002	0.49	1000 meters	Band 31 emissivity
Emis_32		1	255	0.002	0.49	1000 meters	Band 32 emissivity
Clear_sky_days						1000 meters	Days in clear-sky conditions
Bitmask for Clear_sky_days Bit 0: Day 1 clear sky flag 0: Day 1 is not clear-sky 1: Day 1 is clear-sky Bit 1: Day 2 clear sky flag 0: Day 2 is not clear-sky 1: Day 2 is clear-sky Bit 2: Day 3 clear sky flag 0: Day 3 is not clear-sky 1: Day 3 is clear-sky Bit 3: Day 4 clear sky flag 0: Day 4 is not clear-sky 1: Day 4 is clear-sky Bit 4: Day 5 clear sky flag 0: Day 5 is not clear-sky 1: Day 5 is clear-sky Bit 5: Day 6 clear sky flag 0: Day 6 is not clear-sky 1: Day 6 is clear-sky Bit 6: Day 7 clear sky flag 0: Day 7 is not clear-sky 1: Day 7 is clear-sky Bit 7: Day 8 clear sky flag 0: Day 8 is not clear-sky 1: Day 8 is clear-sky
Clear_sky_nights						1000 meters	Nights in clear-sky conditions
Bitmask for Clear_sky_nights Bit 0: Night 1 clear sky flag 0: Night 1 is not clear-sky 1: Night 1 is clear-sky Bit 1: Night 2 clear sky flag 0: Night 2 is not clear-sky 1: Night 2 is clear-sky Bit 2: Night 3 clear sky flag 0: Night 3 is not clear-sky 1: Night 3 is clear-sky Bit 3: Night 4 clear sky flag 0: Night 4 is not clear-sky 1: Night 4 is clear-sky Bit 4: Night 5 clear sky flag 0: Night 5 is not clear-sky 1: Night 5 is clear-sky Bit 5: Night 6 clear sky flag 0: Night 6 is not clear-sky 1: Night 6 is clear-sky Bit 6: Night 7 clear sky flag 0: Night 7 is not clear-sky 1: Night 7 is clear-sky Bit 7: Night 8 clear sky flag 0: Night 8 is not clear-sky 1: Night 8 is clear-sky

Terms of Use

Terms of Use

MODIS data and products acquired through the LP DAAC have no restrictions on subsequent use, sale, or redistribution.

Citations

Citations:

• Please visit LP DAAC 'Citing Our Data' page for information on citing LP DAAC datasets.

DOIs

• https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD11A2.061

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Code Editor (JavaScript)

var dataset = ee.ImageCollection('MODIS/061/MOD11A2')
                  .filter(ee.Filter.date('2018-01-01', '2018-05-01'));
var landSurfaceTemperature = dataset.select('LST_Day_1km');
var landSurfaceTemperatureVis = {
  min: 14000.0,
  max: 16000.0,
  palette: [
    '040274', '040281', '0502a3', '0502b8', '0502ce', '0502e6',
    '0602ff', '235cb1', '307ef3', '269db1', '30c8e2', '32d3ef',
    '3be285', '3ff38f', '86e26f', '3ae237', 'b5e22e', 'd6e21f',
    'fff705', 'ffd611', 'ffb613', 'ff8b13', 'ff6e08', 'ff500d',
    'ff0000', 'de0101', 'c21301', 'a71001', '911003'
  ],
};
Map.setCenter(6.746, 46.529, 2);
Map.addLayer(
    landSurfaceTemperature, landSurfaceTemperatureVis,
    'Land Surface Temperature');

Python setup

See the Python Environment page for information on the Python API and using geemap for interactive development.

import ee
import geemap.core as geemap

Colab (Python)

dataset = ee.ImageCollection('MODIS/061/MOD11A2').filter(
    ee.Filter.date('2018-01-01', '2018-05-01')
)

land_surface_temperature = dataset.select('LST_Day_1km')

land_surface_temperature_vis = {
    'min': 14000.0,
    'max': 16000.0,
    'palette': [
        '040274', '040281', '0502a3', '0502b8', '0502ce', '0502e6',
        '0602ff', '235cb1', '307ef3', '269db1', '30c8e2', '32d3ef',
        '3be285', '3ff38f', '86e26f', '3ae237', 'b5e22e', 'd6e21f',
        'fff705', 'ffd611', 'ffb613', 'ff8b13', 'ff6e08', 'ff500d',
        'ff0000', 'de0101', 'c21301', 'a71001', '911003'
    ],
}

m = geemap.Map()
m.set_center(6.746, 46.529, 2)
m.add_layer(
    land_surface_temperature,
    land_surface_temperature_vis,
    'Land Surface Temperature',
)
m

Open in Code Editor

MOD11A2.061 Terra Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity 8-Day Global 1km

The MOD11A2 V6.1 product provides an average 8-day land surface temperature (LST) in a 1200 x 1200 kilometer grid. Each pixel value in MOD11A2 is a simple average of all the corresponding MOD11A1 LST pixels collected within that 8 day period. The MOD11A2 does a simple averaging of all daily …

MODIS/061/MOD11A2, 8-day,climate,emissivity,global,lst,mod11a2,modis,nasa,surface-temperature,terra,usgs

2000-02-18T00:00:00Z/2026-04-07T00:00:00Z

-90 -180 90 180

Google Earth Engine

https://developers.google.com/earth-engine/datasets

• https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD11A2.061
• https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD11A2.061