MODIS/Terra Clouds 5-Min L2 Swath 1km and 5km - NRT

Each MOD06_L2 product file covers a five-minute time interval. This means that for 5-km resolution parameters, the output grid is 270 pixels in width by 406 pixels in length. On 18 February 2016, the Terra spacecraft, and therefore MODIS, unexpectedly entered safe hold mode during an inclination adjustment maneuver (IAM).

After resuming operation on 24 February 2016, several infrared (IR) channels exhibited significant degradation, namely increased electronic cross talk in the 8.5μm (Band 29) and immediately surrounding channels. This cross talk, manifesting as a “warming” of Band 29, exacerbated a previously identified Band 29 “warming” (cross talk) trend that caused a spurious cloud mask trend over the tropics starting around 2010.

Following extensive analysis, a cross talk correction was developed for the affected IR channels, and the decision was made to reprocess the entire Terra-MODIS L1B record to include this fix. The Atmosphere Team subsequently decided to piggyback the Terra-MODIS L1B reprocessing effort to implement numerous low-impact updates to the C6 atmosphere products. C6.1 changes for the cloud optical property retrievals are low-impact, and are limited primarily to ancillary product usage, the Quality Assurance (QA), and handling of cloud top (CT) properties fill values; no updates to retrieval science are implemented.

For more information about the MODIS Cloud product, visit the MODIS-Atmosphere site at: modis-atmos.gsfc.nasa.gov/products/cloud For more details regarding dataset changes read the document at modis-atmos.gsfc.nasa.gov/documentation/collection-61