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Description

The Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Vegetation Indices Monthly (MYD13C2) Version 6.1 product provides a Vegetation Index (VI) value at a per pixel basis. There are two primary vegetation layers. The first is the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) which is referred to as the continuity index to the existing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (NOAA-AVHRR) derived NDVI. The second vegetation layer is the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), which has improved sensitivity over high biomass regions.

The Climate Modeling Grid (CMG) consists of 3,600 rows and 7,200 columns of 5,600 meter (m) pixels. In generating this monthly product, the algorithm ingests all the MYD13A2 products that overlap the month and employs a weighted temporal average. Global MYD13C1 data are cloud-free spatial composites and are provided as a Level 3 product projected on a 0.05 degree (5,600 m) geographic CMG. The MYD13C2 has data fields for the NDVI, EVI, VI QA, reflectance data, angular information, and spatial statistics such as mean, standard deviation, and number of used input pixels at the 0.05 degree CMG resolution.

Known Issues

Version Description

The following changes and improvements were implemented for inputs to MODIS Version 6.1 vegetation indices data products: (1) Version 6.1 Level-1B (L1B) products have been improved by undergoing various calibration changes that include: changes to the response-versus-scan angle (RVS) approach that affects reflectance bands for Aqua and Terra MODIS, corrections to adjust for the optical crosstalk in Terra MODIS infrared (IR) bands, and corrections to the Terra MODIS forward look-up table (LUT) update for the period 2012 – 2017, and (2) A polarization correction has been applied to the L1B Reflective Solar Bands (RSB).

Product Summary

Platforms
AQUA
Instruments
MODIS
Spatial Extent

N: 90 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180

Spatial Resolution
5600 Meters x 5600 Meters
Spatial Reference System(s)
MODIS Climate Modeling Grid (CMG)
Location
GLOBAL
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
CARTESIAN
Temporal Extent
2002-07-01 to Present
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
C2565794055-LPCLOUD
Data State
ACTIVE
Number of Files/Granules
61
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. (2021). MODIS/Aqua Vegetation Indices Monthly L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG V061 [Data set]. NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MYD13C2.061 Date Accessed: 2026-02-13

File Naming Convention

MYD13C2.A2025182.061.2025219101242.hdf

The file name begins with the Product Short Name (MYD13C2) followed by the Julian Date of Acquisition formatted as AYYYYDDD (A2025182), the Version of the data collection (061), the Julian Date and Time of Production designated as YYYYDDDHHMMSS (2025219101242), and the Data Format (hdf).

Documents

USER'S GUIDE

ALGORITHM THEORETICAL BASIS DOCUMENT (ATBD)

PRODUCT QUALITY ASSESSMENT

SCIENCE DATA PRODUCT VALIDATION

GENERAL DOCUMENTATION

Publications Citing This Dataset

Filters
Title Year Author
Short-term agricultural drought prediction based on D-vine copula quantile regression in snow-free unfrozen surface area, China Wu, T.
Influence of energy and water cycle key parameters on drought in Mongolian Plateau during 1979-2020 He, J.
Filling temporal gaps within and between GRACE and GRACE-FO terrestrial water storage records—An innovative approach Gyawali, B.
Long-term spatiotemporal trends in aerosol optical depth and its relationship with enhanced vegetation index and meteorological parameters over South Asia Tariq, S.
Improvements of adam3 by incorporating new dust emission reduction formulations based on real-time modis ndvi Cho, J. H.
Global dust optical depth climatology derived from CALIOP and MODIS aerosol retrievals on decadal timescales—Regional and interannual variability Song, Q.
The novel microwave temperature vegetation drought index (Mtvdi) captures canopy seasonality across amazonian tropical evergreen forests Liu, L.
Satellite retrieval of microwave land surface emissivity under clear and cloudy skies in china using observations from AMSR-E and MODIS Hu, J.
The applicability of using NARX neural network to forecast GRACE terrestrial water storage anomalies Wang, J. L.
Observed soil moisture impact on strong convection over mountainous tibetan plateau Barton, E. J.
SHOWING 10 OF 16

Variables

The table below lists the variables contained within a single granule for this dataset. Variables often contain observed or derived geophysical measurements collected from a variety of sources, including remote sensing instruments on satellite and airborne platforms, field campaigns, in situ measurements, and model outputs. The terms variable, parameter, scientific data set, layer, and band have been used across NASA’s Earth science disciplines; however, variable is the designated nomenclature in NASA’s Common Metadata Repository (CMR). Variable metadata attributes such as Name, Description, Units, Data Type, Fill Value, Valid Range, and Scale Factor allow users to efficiently process and analyze the data. The full range of attributes may not be applicable to all variables. Additional information on variable attributes is typically available in the data, user guide, and/or other product documentation.

For questions on a specific variable, please use the Earthdata Forum.

Name Description Units Data Type Fill Value Valid Range Scale Factor
CMG 0.05 Deg Monthly EVI std dev Standard deviation computed from input EVI pixels EVI int16 -3000 0 to 10000 0.0001
CMG 0.05 Deg Monthly NDVI 16 day NDVI NDVI int16 -3000 -2000 to 10000 0.0001
CMG 0.05 Deg Monthly number of 1km pix used Number of 1 km input pixels used Number uint8 255 0 to 36 N/A
CMG 0.05 Deg Monthly #1km pix +-30deg VZ Number of 1km pixels used with VZ angle less than + or - 30 degs Number uint8 255 0 to 36 N/A
CMG 0.05 Deg Monthly Avg sun zen angle Sun zenith angle of VI Pixel Degree int16 -10000 -9000 to 9000 0.01
CMG 0.05 Deg Monthly blue reflectance Surface Reflectance Band 3 N/A int16 -1000 0 to 10000 0.0001
CMG 0.05 Deg Monthly EVI 16 day EVI EVI int16 -3000 -2000 to 10000 0.0001
CMG 0.05 Deg Monthly MIR reflectance Surface Reflectance Band 7 N/A int16 -1000 0 to 10000 0.0001
CMG 0.05 Deg Monthly NDVI std dev Standard deviation computed from input NDVI pixels NDVI int16 -3000 0 to 10000 0.0001
CMG 0.05 Deg Monthly NIR reflectance Surface Reflectance Band 2 N/A int16 -1000 0 to 10000 0.0001
CMG 0.05 Deg Monthly pixel reliabilty Quality reliability of VI pixel Rank int8 -1 0 to 4 N/A
CMG 0.05 Deg Monthly red reflectance Surface Reflectance Band 1 N/A int16 -1000 0 to 10000 0.0001
CMG 0.05 Deg Monthly VI Quality VI quality indicators Bit Field uint16 65535 0 to 65534 N/A
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