Skip to main content

Biosphere Data Access and Tools

NASA biosphere data range from surface reflectance data useful for measuring the greenness of vegetation to measurements of nighttime lights that disrupt the behaviors of wildlife. Our datasets and tools help researchers translate these interconnected data points into actionable knowledge.

Biosphere Datasets

View All Datasets
Dataset Version Platforms Instruments Temporal Extent Spatial Extent Spatial Resolution Data Format
LBA-ECO CD-34 Landsat Fractional Land Cover Analysis, Manaus, Brazil: 2004-2005 1 NOT APPLICABLE NOT APPLICABLE 2004-10-14 to 2005-07-29

N: -2.63 S: -2.63 E: -60.17 W: -60.17

GeoTIFF
ECMWF SMST Data 1 ECMWF 2025-08-01 to Present

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

0.1 Decimal Degrees x 0.1 Decimal Degrees netCDF-3
Maps of Vegetation Types and Physiographic Features, Toolik Lake Area, Alaska 1 COMPUTERS Computer 1990-01-01 to 2014-08-31

N: 68.6561 S: 68.6169 E: -149.546 W: -149.67

Shapefile
SAFARI 2000 1-Degree Estimates of Burned Biomass, Area, and Emissions, 2000 1 MODELS, SPOT-4, ERS-2, Terra Computer, MULTI-SPECTRAL, ATSR, MODIS 2000-08-01 to 2000-09-30

N: 0 S: -36 E: 56 W: -18

Shapefile
Tundra Plant Leaf-level Spectral Reflectance and Chlorophyll Fluorescence, 2019-2021 1 FIELD SURVEYS SPECTROMETERS 2019-07-19 to 2021-09-30

N: 71.313 S: 64.826 E: -147.811 W: -156.599

CSV
SAFARI 2000 AVHRR Daily Site (1.5 km) and 15-Day Regional (1.5- and 6-km) Imagery 1 NOAA-14 AVHRR 1998-07-01 to 2000-10-31

N: -7.4861 S: -35.2617 E: 43.1995 W: 8.733

Binary
BOREAS TE-02 Stem Growth & Sapwood Data 1 FIELD INVESTIGATION, LABORATORY VISUAL OBSERVATIONS, BALANCE, COLORIMETERS 1994-05-24 to 1994-09-25

N: 55.93 S: 55.88 E: -98.29 W: -98.67

ASCII
ABoVE: Wildfire Carbon Emissions and Burned Plot Characteristics, NWT, CA, 2014-2016 1 MODELS, FIELD SURVEYS, LABORATORY Computer, STEEL MEASURING TAPE, CARBON ANALYZERS 2014-07-02 to 2016-08-01

N: 71.6982 S: 56.2534 E: -102 W: -136.127

multiple
BOREAS AFM-12 1-km AVHRR Seasonal Land Cover Classification 1 NOAA-11 AVHRR 1992-04-01 to 1992-09-30

N: 57 S: 52 E: -96 W: -108

Binary
BOREAS TE-10 Photosynthetic Response Data 1 LABORATORY, FIELD INVESTIGATION OXYGEN ANALYZERS, BALANCE, LICOR LEAF AREA METER, VISUAL OBSERVATIONS 1994-05-25 to 1996-10-13

N: 53.99 S: 53.63 E: -104.65 W: -106.2

ASCII
SHOWING 10 OF 1509
VIIRS
Vegetation indices measure the amount of green vegetation over a given area and can be used to assess vegetation health. A commonly-used vegetation index is the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), which uses the difference between near-infrared (NIR) and red reflectance divided by their sum. NDVI values range from -1 to 1. Low values of NDVI generally correspond to barren areas of rock, sand, exposed soils, or snow, while higher NDVI values indicate greener vegetation, including forests, croplands, and wetlands.
VIIRS Vegetation Indices on Earthdata Search

Biosphere Data Tools

View All Data Tools
Tool Description Services
STREAM STREAM is a rapid water quality monitoring tool that processes satellite imagery to create maps showing chlorophyll-a, Total Suspended Solids, and water clarity at 20-30 meter resolution. Processing
TESViS The Terrestrial Ecology Subsetting & Visualization Services Global Subsets Tool provides on-demand, customized subsets of several terrestrial ecology data products. Visualization, Subsetting
VEDA NASA's Visualization, Exploration, and Data Analysis (VEDA) project is an open-source science cyberinfrastructure for data processing, visualization, exploration, and geographic information systems (GIS) capabilities. Access, Analysis, Processing, Visualization, Geoprocessing
Vertex Vertex is a graphical search interface for finding synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. Search and Discovery, Access, Downloading, Processing, Subsetting
Worldview Worldview offers the capability to interactively browse over 1,200 global, full-resolution satellite imagery layers and download the underlying data. Analysis, Search and Discovery, Visualization, Access, Comparison, Monitoring Natural Events
SHOWING 5 OF 15

Frequently Asked Questions

Earthdata Forum

Our online forum provides a space for users to browse thousands of FAQs about research needs, data, and data applications. You can also submit new questions for our experts to answer.

Submit Questions to Earthdata Forumand View Expert Responses

Earthdata
Forum