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Clouds over Flores Island, Indonesia

MODIS; aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite flew over Indonesia and captured this true-color image of spectacular clouds rising over the landscape.

Tropical Cyclone Alessia (02S) over Australia

The first storm of the Australian region's cyclone season threatened Australia’s Top End in late November 2013.

Plume from Sakura-jima, southern Japan

On November 23, 2013 violent eruptions shook Japan’s Sakura-jima volcano.

Tropical Storm Issac

In late August 2012, Tropical Storm Isaac hovered over the Caribbean Sea, taking aim at populated areas. At 2:00 p.m. EDT on August 23, shortly after MODIS took this picture, the U.S.

Fires and smoke in western United States

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image of the fires on August 13, 2012.

Latest News

MCST arranged a workshop (via telecon) to discuss the status, impact on science products and way forward in regards to the Aqua CFPA temperature issue. The presentation can be found in the following location: https://mcst.gsfc.nasa.gov/mcst-meetings

The MODIS Science Team Meeting will be held April 29 - May 1, 2014 at the Sheraton Columbia Town Center Hotel in Columbia, MD. Information regarding registration, logistics, and agendas is now available here: https://www.signup4.net/Public/ap.aspx?EID=MODI23E

Terra band 10 EV-based RVS: The EV-based m1 and RVS algorithm currently used for bands 8 & 9 was extended to band 10. A special LUT was delivered to OBPG for testing. The results demonstrated that the LUT produced very similar results to the correction applied by OBPG. It was recommended that the new band 10 approach be implemented in the official Collection 6 LUT. A new LUT was delivered containing this update (6.1.14.22_OC) prior to the start of an OBPG reprocessing. MCST will begin a similar implementation in the forward C6 to eventually synchronize the OBPG and forward C6 LUTs.

December 18, 2013 marked the 14 year anniversary of Terra launch. The MODIS instrument on-board the Terra spacecraft has well surpassed its design lifetime, but continues to acquire valuable science data.

Terra MODIS band 30 detector 7 (production order) had a sudden jump on March 21, 2013 and NEdT started to exceed the specification (0.25) on May 4, 2013. Analysis shows that the NEdT exceeds the specification (0.25) for more than 20% of scans within a granule consistently for a period of two weeks, meeting the criteria for a MODIS TEB detector QA change from “Operational” to “Noisy”. MCST has implemented a QA status change for Terra MODIS band 30 detector 7 from “Operational” to “Noisy” in both the C5 & C6 LUT.

MODIS Characterization Support Team

The MODIS Characterization Support Team (MCST) is dedicated to the production of a high quality MODIS calibration product. This product is a precursor to every geophysical science product. MCST works for the Science Team Leader and is responsible for developing and maintaining the calibration product (L1B algorithm).

Tags: Calibration

Calibration

Collection 6 has been under development for a number of years. MCST, in consultation with representatives of the science disciplines, developed improvements to the calibration algorithms and methodolgies to handle known issues with the aging MODIS sensors. Summary talks of the proposed Collection 6 changes have been delivered at the MODIS science team meetings over the last few years.

L1B

Current L1B LUT Versions:

Terra C6: 6.1.26.85; Terra C6.1: 6.2.2.107; Aqua C6: 6.1.37.88; Aqua C6.1: 6.2.3.32

Tags: L1B Product

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