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Description

This data set reports the maximum snow cover extent during an eight-day period in 1200 km x 1200 km tiles. Tiles are generated by compositing 500 m observations from the MODIS/Aqua Snow Cover Daily L3 Global 500m Grid (MYD10A1) data set. Bit flags are also provided that report the eight-day snow/no-snow chronology for each 500 m cell.

As of August 2023, this data set is retired and no longer available for download. We recommend using <a href="https://nsidc.org/data/myd10a2/versions/61">MODIS/Aqua Snow Cover 8-Day L3 Global 500m SIN Grid, Version 61</a> as an alternative.

Version Description

Changes for Version 6 include:
  • Fractional Snow Cover (FSC) previously used as input to this data set has been replaced by Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) snow cover.;
  • Aqua MODIS band 6 data have been restored to scientific quality using a Quantitative Image Restoration (QIR) technique. Aqua now uses the same snow detection algorithm as Terra;

Product Summary

Platforms
Aqua
Instruments
MODIS
Spatial Extent

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

Spatial Resolution
500 Meters x 500 Meters
Location
GLOBAL LAND
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
GEODETIC
Temporal Extent
2002-07-04 to 2023-02-25
Temporal Resolution
8 Day
Concept ID
C3091260597-NSIDC_CPRD
Data State
DEPRECATED
Number of Files/Granules
0
Processing Level
3
Published
Science Keywords
Snow Cover

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

Hall, D. K., & Riggs, G. A. (2015). MODIS/Aqua Snow Cover 8-Day L3 Global 500m SIN Grid, Version 6 [Data set]. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MYD10A2.006 Date Accessed: 2026-05-27

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