MERRA-2 M2T1NXLND: Land Surface Diagnostics V5.12.4

Page Summary

• The M2T1NXLND dataset, part of MERRA-2, provides hourly time-averaged land surface diagnostics.

• It includes data on baseflow flux, runoff, soil wetness, soil water layers, and soil temperature at six layers.

• The dataset covers the period from 1980 to the present with hourly cadence.

• MERRA-2 is the latest global atmospheric reanalysis produced by NASA GMAO using the GEOS model version 5.12.4.

• This dataset is available through Google Earth Engine and adheres to NASA's open data sharing policy.

Dataset Availability

1980-01-01T00:00:00Z–2026-02-01T23:00:00Z

Dataset Producer

NASA/MERRA

Earth Engine Snippet

ee.ImageCollection("NASA/GSFC/MERRA/lnd/2")

Cadence

1 Hour

Tags

climate cryosphere evaporation ice merra precipitation soil temperature water-vapor

Description

M2T1NXLND (or tavg1_2d_lnd_Nx) is an hourly time-averaged data collection in Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications version 2 (MERRA-2). This collection consists of land surface diagnostics, such a baseflow flux, runoff, surface soil wetness, root zone soil wetness, water at surface layer, water at root zone layer, and soil temperature at six layers. The data field is time-stamped with the central time of an hour starting from 00:30 UTC, e.g.: 00:30, 01:30, ... , 23:30 UTC.

MERRA-2 is the latest version of global atmospheric reanalysis for the satellite era produced by NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) using the Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS) version 5.12.4. The dataset covers the period of 1980-present with the latency of ~3 weeks after the end of a month.

Bands

Bands

Pixel size: 69375x55000 meters (all bands)

Name	Units	Min	Max	Pixel Size	Description
BASEFLOW	kg/m^2/s	0*	0.000129*	69375x55000 meters	Baseflow flux
ECHANGE	W/m^2	-2930.42*	689.084*	69375x55000 meters	Rate of change of total land energy
EVLAND	kg/m^2/s	-0.00011*	0.000682*	69375x55000 meters	Evaporation land
EVPINTR	W/m^2	-55.2571*	582.82*	69375x55000 meters	Interception loss energy flux
EVPSBLN	W/m^2	-310.134*	729.17*	69375x55000 meters	Snow ice evaporation energy flux
EVPSOIL	W/m^2	-0.588216*	1217.36*	69375x55000 meters	Baresoil evaporation energy flux
EVPTRNS	W/m^2	-0.882528*	1635.84*	69375x55000 meters	Transpiration energy flux
FRSAT		0*	0.983076*	69375x55000 meters	Fractional area of saturated zone
FRSNO		0*	1*	69375x55000 meters	Fractional area of land snowcover
FRUNST		0*	0.999996*	69375x55000 meters	Fractional area of unsaturated zone
FRWLT		0*	1*	69375x55000 meters	Fractional area of wilting zone
GHLAND	W/m^2	-245.165*	304.675*	69375x55000 meters	Ground heating land
GRN		0*	0.990087*	69375x55000 meters	Greeness fraction
GWETPROF		0.086402*	0.99997*	69375x55000 meters	Average prof soil moisture
GWETROOT		0.085486*	1*	69375x55000 meters	Root zone soil wetness
GWETTOP		0.010069*	1*	69375x55000 meters	Surface soil wetness
LAI		0*	8.07408*	69375x55000 meters	Leaf area index
LHLAND	W/m^2	-308.962*	1682.57*	69375x55000 meters	Latent heat flux land
LWLAND	W/m^2	-318.505*	47.5398*	69375x55000 meters	Net longwave land
PARDFLAND	W/m^2	0*	277.006*	69375x55000 meters	Surface downwelling photosynthetic active radiation diffuse flux
PARDRLAND	W/m^2	0*	441.662*	69375x55000 meters	Surface downwelling par beam flux
PRECSNOLAND	kg/m^2/s	0*	0.008119*	69375x55000 meters	Snowfall land
PRECTOTLAND	kg/m^2/s	0*	0.110576*	69375x55000 meters	Total precipitation land
PRMC	Volume fraction	0.032228*	0.476084*	69375x55000 meters	Water profile
QINFIL	kg/m^2/s	0*	0.012518*	69375x55000 meters	Soil water infiltration rate
RUNOFF	kg/m^2/s	0*	0.104504*	69375x55000 meters	Overland runoff including throughflow
RZMC	Volume fraction	0.031886*	0.478268*	69375x55000 meters	Water root zone
SFMC	Volume fraction	0.003945*	0.478*	69375x55000 meters	Water surface layer
SHLAND	W/m^2	-1189.34*	768.706*	69375x55000 meters	Sensible heat flux land
SMLAND	kg/m^2/s	0*	0.007922*	69375x55000 meters	Snowmelt flux land
SNODP	m	0*	9.30012*	69375x55000 meters	Snow depth
SNOMAS	kg/m^2	0*	3964.6*	69375x55000 meters	Total snow storage land
SPLAND	W/m^2	-71.822*	754.467*	69375x55000 meters	Rate of spurious land energy source
SPSNOW	W/m^2	-1287.32*	127.015*	69375x55000 meters	Rate of spurious snow energy
SPWATR	kg/m^2/s	-0.000305*	2e-06*	69375x55000 meters	Rate of spurious land water source
SWLAND	W/m^2	0*	1076.59*	69375x55000 meters	Net shortwave land
TELAND	J/m^2	-2.06745e+09*	1.09445e+09*	69375x55000 meters	Total energy storage land
TPSNOW	K	207.984*	273.16*	69375x55000 meters	Surface temperature of snow
TSAT	K	231.971*	319.16*	69375x55000 meters	Surface temperature of saturated zone
TSOIL1	K	235.694*	326.169*	69375x55000 meters	Soil temperatures layer 1
TSOIL2	K	236.821*	317.313*	69375x55000 meters	Soil temperatures layer 2
TSOIL3	K	238.6*	314.921*	69375x55000 meters	Soil temperatures layer 3
TSOIL4	K	241.158*	313.186*	69375x55000 meters	Soil temperatures layer 4
TSOIL5	K	244.4*	311.295*	69375x55000 meters	Soil temperatures layer 5
TSOIL6	K	249.436*	309.734*	69375x55000 meters	Soil temperatures layer 6
TSURF	K	207.984*	341.939*	69375x55000 meters	Surface temperature of land incl snow
TUNST	K	231.303*	341.938*	69375x55000 meters	Surface temperature of unsaturated zone
TWLAND	kg/m^2	42.9657*	4430.25*	69375x55000 meters	Available water storage land
TWLT	K	231.303*	341.939*	69375x55000 meters	Surface temperature of wilted zone
WCHANGE	kg/m^2/s	-0.001769*	0.012293*	69375x55000 meters	Rate of change of total land water

* estimated min or max value

Terms of Use

Terms of Use

NASA promotes the full and open sharing of all data with research and applications communities, private industry, academia, and the general public.

Explore with Earth Engine

Important: Earth Engine is a platform for petabyte-scale scientific analysis and visualization of geospatial datasets, both for public benefit and for business and government users. Earth Engine is free to use for research, education, and nonprofit use. To get started, please register for Earth Engine access.

Code Editor (JavaScript)

var dataset = ee.ImageCollection('NASA/GSFC/MERRA/lnd/2')
                  .filter(ee.Filter.date('2022-02-01', '2022-02-02'));
var baseflow_flux = dataset.select('BASEFLOW');
var bfVis = {
  min: -0.00000913,
  max:  0.00001076,
  palette: ['001137', '01abab', 'e7eb05', '620500']
};
Map.setCenter(-95, 39, 2);
Map.addLayer(baseflow_flux, bfVis, 'Baseflow flux');

Open in Code Editor

MERRA-2 M2T1NXLND: Land Surface Diagnostics V5.12.4

M2T1NXLND (or tavg1_2d_lnd_Nx) is an hourly time-averaged data collection in Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications version 2 (MERRA-2). This collection consists of land surface diagnostics, such a baseflow flux, runoff, surface soil wetness, root zone soil wetness, water at surface layer, water at root zone layer, and soil …

NASA/GSFC/MERRA/lnd/2, climate,cryosphere,evaporation,ice,merra,precipitation,soil,temperature,water-vapor

1980-01-01T00:00:00Z/2026-02-01T23:00:00Z

-90 -180 90 180

Google Earth Engine

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