MASTER: Level 2 Emissivity and Land Surface Temperature

This dataset includes Level 2 (L2) land surface temperature (LST) and spectral emissivity data products derived from the thermal infrared (TIR) bands from the MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) instrument. The MASTER L2 TIR products support a wide range of temperature-sensitive applications including wildfire spread mitigation, volcanic eruption detection, agricultural plant stress monitoring, urban heat island characterization, and water system assessment. Emissivity retrievals derived through temperature-emissivity separation enable surface compositional mapping, with demonstrated applications in critical mineral resource identification. Together, these L2 products provide a unique combination of high spatial resolution thermal and compositional information for Earth science research and orbital mission calibration and validation. The L2 TIR data products were derived from L1B georeferenced multispectral imagery of calibrated radiance in the TIR bands (8 - 13 micrometers) at 5 to 50-meter spatial resolution (altitude dependent). The L2 algorithm is based on the ASTER Temperature Emissivity Separation (TES) algorithm in combination with the MODTRAN radiative transfer model to correct for atmospheric effects. Derived L2 data products are the LST and spectral emissivity in six bands (42, 43, 44, 47, 48, 49) that fall within atmospheric windows regions of the TIR. Retrieval of surface emissivity for the remaining TIR bands (45, 46, 50) is not possible since these bands fall in strong ozone and water vapor absorption regions of the spectrum. L2 products are provided in HDF-5 format.