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Description

The MOD13A3 Version 6 data product was decommissioned on July 31, 2023. Users are encouraged to use the MOD13A3 Version 6.1 data product.

The Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Vegetation Indices (MOD13A3) Version 6 data are provided monthly at 1 kilometer (km) spatial resolution as a gridded Level 3 product in the sinusoidal projection. In generating this monthly product, the algorithm ingests all the MOD13A2 products that overlap the month and employs a weighted temporal average.

The MODIS Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) complements NOAA's Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) NDVI products and provides continuity for time series historical applications. MODIS also includes an Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) that minimizes canopy background variations and maintains sensitivity over dense vegetation conditions. The EVI uses the blue band to remove residual atmosphere contamination caused by smoke and sub-pixel thin clouds. The MODIS NDVI and EVI products are computed from surface reflectances corrected for molecular scattering, ozone absorption, and aerosols.

Vegetation indices are used for global monitoring of vegetation conditions and are used in products displaying land cover and land cover changes. These data may be used as input for modeling global biogeochemical and hydrologic processes as well as global and regional climate. Additional applications include characterizing land surface biophysical properties and processes, such as primary production and land cover conversion.

Provided along with the vegetation layers and the two quality assurance (QA) layers are reflectance bands 1 (red), 2 (near-infrared), 3 (blue), and 7 (mid-infrared), as well as three observation layers.

Known Issues

  • The incorrect representation of the aerosol quantities (low, average, high) in the Collection 6 MOD09 surface reflectance products may have impacted MOD13 Vegetation Index data products particularly over arid bright surfaces.
  • Corrections were implemented in Collection 6.1 reprocessing.
  • For complete information about known issues please refer to the MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website.

Improvements/Changes from Previous Versions

  • The incorrect representation of the aerosol quantities (low, average, high) in the Collection 6 MOD09 surface reflectance products may have impacted MOD13 Vegetation Index data products particularly over arid bright surfaces.
  • Corrections were implemented in Collection 6.1 reprocessing.
  • For complete information about known issues please refer to the MODIS/VIIRS Land Quality Assessment website.

Version Description

The MOD13A3 Version 6 data product was decommissioned on July 31, 2023. Users are encouraged to use the MOD13A3 Version 6.1 data product.

Product Summary

Platforms
Terra
Instruments
MODIS
Spatial Extent
N: 90 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180
Spatial Resolution
1000 Meters x 1000 Meters
Geographic Region
GLOBAL
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
GEODETIC
Temporal Extent
2000-02-01 to 2023-01-31
Temporal Resolution
1 Month
Data Partner
Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC)
MODIS Adaptive Processing System, Terrestrial Information Systems Laboratory, Earth Sciences Division, Science and Exploration Directorate, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA (NASA/GSFC/SED/ESD/TISL/MODAPS)
Concept ID
C2763297270-LPCLOUD
Data State
DEPRECATED
Processing Level
3
Published
Updated
Science Keywords
Vegetation Index,
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)

Citation

Citation is critically important for dataset documentation and discovery. This dataset is openly shared, without restriction, in accordance with the EOSDIS Data Use and Citation Guidance.

Copy Citation

Didan, K. (2015). MOD13A3 MODIS/Terra vegetation Indices Monthly L3 Global 1km SIN Grid V006 [Data set]. NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD13A3.006 Date Accessed: 2025-10-21

File Naming Convention

MOD13A3.A2002244.h00v10.006.2015151082733.hdf

The file name begins with the Product Short Name (MOD13A3) followed by the Julian Date of Acquisition formatted as AYYYYDDD (A2002244), the Tile Identifier which is horizontal tile and vertical tile provided as hXXvYY (h00v10), the Version of the data collection (006), the Julian Date and Time of Production designated as YYYYDDDHHMMSS (2015151082733), and the Data Format (hdf).

Documents

SHOWING 3 OF 3

Publications Citing This Dataset

Filters
Title Year Author
The impacts of drought on the health and demography of eastern grey kangaroos Juillard, L. Q.
The ABCflux database—Arctic-boreal CO2flux observations and ancillary information aggregated to monthly time steps across terrestrial ecosystems Virkkala, A. M.
Risk assessment of rainstorm disasters in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao greater Bay area of China during 1990-2018 Wang, Y. J.
Host diversity and behavior determine patterns of interspecies transmission and geographic diffusion of avian influenza A subtypes among North American wild reservoir species Hicks, J. T.
Temporal variations of NDVI and LAI and interactions with hydroclimatic variables in a large and agro-ecologically diverse region Ukasha, M.
Interannual variation of gross primary production detected from optimal convolutional neural network at multi-timescale water stress Yu, P. X.
Modelling daily air temperature at a fine spatial resolution dealing with challenging meteorological phenomena and topography in Switzerland Fluckiger, B.
Drought hot spot analysis using local indicators of spatial autocorrelation—An experience from Bangladesh Islam, S. M. S.
Exploring the relationships between ground-measured particulate matter and satellite-retrieved aerosol parameters in China Yin, S.
Spatiotemporal characterization of agricultural drought in the Sahel region using a composite drought index Abdourahamane, Z. S.
SHOWING 10 OF 93

Variables

Variables are a set of physical properties whose values determine the characteristics or behavior of something. For example, temperature and pressure are variables of the atmosphere. Parameters and variables can be used interchangeably. Variable level attributes provide individual information for each variable.

The Name in this table is the variable name. Fill value indicates missing or undefined data points in a variable. Valid range is the range of values the variable can store. Scale factor is used to increase or decrease the size of an object and can be used to correct for distortion. For questions on a specific variable, please use the Earthdata Forum.

Name Description Units Data Type Fill Value Valid Range Scale Factor
1 km monthly blue reflectance Surface Reflectance Band 3 N/A int16 -1000 -1000 to 10000 0.0001
1 km monthly EVI 1 km monthly EVI EVI int16 -3000 -3000 to 10000 0.0001
1 km monthly MIR reflectance Surface Reflectance Band 7 N/A int16 -1000 -1000 to 10000 0.0001
1 km monthly NDVI 1 km monthly NDVI NDVI int16 -3000 -3000 to 10000 0.0001
1 km monthly NIR reflectance Surface Reflectance Band 2 N/A int16 -1000 -1000 to 10000 0.0001
1 km monthly pixel reliability Quality reliability of VI pixel Rank int8 -1 -1 to 3 N/A
1 km monthly red reflectance Surface Reflectance Band 1 N/A int16 -1000 -1000 to 10000 0.0001
1 km monthly relative azimuth angle Relative azimuth angle of VI pixel Degree int16 -4000 -4000 to 18000 0.01
1 km monthly sun zenith angle Sun zenith angle of VI pixel Degree int16 -10000 -10000 to 18000 0.01
1 km monthly view zenith angle View zenith angle of VI Pixel Degree int16 -10000 -10000 to 18000 0.01
1 km monthly VI Quality VI Quality indicators Bit Field uint16 65535 65535 to 65534 N/A
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