MODIS | MS2GT Tutorial 3
Gridding 500 m Snow Cover Data Over Colorado Using mod10_l2.pl
- Obtaining the Data
- Creating the mod10_l2.pl Command File
- Creating the listfile
- Creating the gpd and mpp files
- Creating the latlonlistfile
- Running the mod10_l2.pl Command File
- Examining the Results
The MS2GT installation provides most of the files you will need for the tutorials. The tutorial shows the process you need to use to create the files when performing operations on data files. The MS2GT installation does not provide the data files. Instructions for obtaining the MODIS data you will need for this tutorial are provided below.
In this tutorial, we will put some MODIS 500 m snow cover swath data covering Colorado into an Azimuthal Equal Area spherical projection centered on 40 N 105 W, with the vertical axis of the grid through the center pointing due north towards the top of the grid. We want the grid resolution to be 500 m and we want to use a spherical earth radius value of 6370.997 km. The upper left corner of the grid is at about 44 N 110 W and the lower right corner of the grid at about 36 N 100 W. We want to grid all available MOD10_L2 channels. These include Channel 1 Snow Cover and Channel 2 Snow Cover Pixel QA. We could simply use MOD10_L2 data, but as you can see in Supported Data Sets, the latlon data are stored at only 5 km resolution in MOD10_L2 granules. We could have mod10_l2.pl work with only the MOD10_L2 granules, for example by setting latlonlistfile to none, but we decide to utilize the corresponding MOD03 granules as well in order to minimize interpolation error.
Note: To run this example, you need a machine with at least 100 MB of memory and at least 300 MB of free disk space.
We know that the afternoon of September 25, 2000 was fairly clear over Colorado and there was a significant amount of snow on the ground. So, we will use the NSIDC Data Pool FTP site to download the two MOD10_L2 granules that were acquired on September 25 (Julian day 269), 2000 at 1745 and 1750, and appear to cover Colorado and the neighboring region. We use the Level 1 Atmospheres Archives and Distribution System (LAADS) data pool FTP site to download the two corresponding MOD03 granules.
The FTP directory ftp://n5eil01u.ecs.nsidc.org/SAN/MOST/MOD10_L2.005/2000.09.25/ contains the MOD10_L2 granules for September 25, 2000. Navigate to this directory with a browser and download the following MOD10_L2 granules to the ms2gt/tutorial_3 folder on your computer:
The FTP directory ftp://ladsweb.nascom.nasa.gov/allData/5/MOD03/2000/269/ contains the MOD03 granules for Julian day 269 (September 25) of the year 2000. Navigate to this directory with a browser and download the following MOD03 granules to the ms2gt/tutorial_3 folder on your computer:
In the ms2gt/tutorial_3 directory, create a text file called colo_2000269_1745.csh, and add the following line:
mod10_l2.pl . colo_2000269_1745 listfile.txt Colorado500.gpd 12 latlonlist.txt
This command specifies the following information (see mod10_l2.pl):
|dirinout||"."||The current directory will contain the input and output files when colo_2000269_1745.csh is invoked.|
|tag||colo_2000269_1745||All output filenames containing gridded data created by mod10_l2.pl will begin with the string colo_2000269_1745.|
|listfile||listfile.txt||The text file contains a list of the MOD10_L2 files to process. See Creating the listfile.|
|gpdfile||Colorado500.gpd||The gdp file contains a specification of the grid and the associated map projection to use in gridding the data. See Creating the gpd and mpp files.|
|chanlist||12||The text file specifies that both Channels 1 (Snow Cover) and 2 (Snow Cover PixelQA) should be gridded.|
|latlonlistfile||12||The file contains a list of the MOD03 files whose latitude and longitude data should be used in place of the latlon data in the corresponding MOD10_L2 files in listfile.txt. See Creating the latlonlistfile.|
|keep||not specified||The default value of 0 is used, which indicates that intermediate chan, lat, lon, col, and row files are deleted.|
|rind||not specified||The default value of 50 is used. If you see holes in the final grid that seem to correspond to the boundaries between adjacent swath granules, then you can try increasing the rind value.|
Make colo_2000269_1745.csh executable by typing:
chmod +x colo_2000269_1745.csh
In the ms2gt/tutorial_3 directory, create a text file called listfile.txt, and add the following two lines:
Note that we list the MOD10_L2 files to be gridded.
Refer to the Points, Pixels, Grids, and Cells: A Mapping and Gridding Primer document for a description of the gpd and mpp file formats used by the mapx library in defining a grid and its associated map projection. In the previous two tutorials, we modified existing gpd files and used an existing mpp file (N200correct.mpp) that specified EASE-Grid projections. Here we will create gpd and mpp files from scratch. We'll start with creating the mpp file, Colorado.mpp, in the ms2gt/grids directory (or copy Colorado.mpp from the ms2gt/tutorial_3 directory to the ms2gt/grids directory):
40.0 -105.0 lat0 lon0
100.0 scale (km/map unit)
40.0 -105.0 center lat lon
20.0 60.0 lat min max
-135.0 -75.00 lon min max
10.00 15.00 grid
0.00 0.00 label lat lon
1 0 0 cil bdy riv<
6370.997 Earth equatorial radius (km) -- gctp
- The first line specifies the projection we wish to use: Azimuthal Equal-Area. Since we didn't specify ellipsoid, a spherical projection is assumed.
- The second line specifies the map projection origin: 40 N 105 W.
- The third line specifies the rotation: 0 degrees. This will produce a map with the vertical axis through the center pointing due north towards the top of the map.
- The fourth line specifies an arbitrary scale for the map as opposed to the grid, which will be defined by the gpd file as grid cells per map unit. Here we define a map unit to be 100 km.
- The fifth line specifies the center of the map which is usually, but not necessarily, the map projection origin. Here we set it equal to the map projection origin: 40 N 105 W.
- The next five lines (the sixth through tenth lines) specify parameters that would be useful to programs that produce graphic overlays. Refer to the Points, Pixels, Grids, and Cells: A Mapping and Gridding Primer document. They are not used by the MS2GT software, but are present in the mpp file as place holders.
- The eleventh line, if present, specifies the equatorial radius to use instead of the default 6371.228 km. Here we specify 6370.997 km.
In preparing the gpd file that defines our grid, we must know following:
- The name of the mpp file that will define our map: Colorado.mpp.
- The number of columns and rows. We don't know these yet, but we do know:
- There are about 40000 km / 360 degrees = 111 km/deg in longitude at the equator or in latitude anywhere.
- We want our grid to have 500 m per cell = 0.5 km/cell.
- We need to span about 10 degrees in longitude (110 W to 100 W) at about 40 N. This works out to about 10 deg * cos(40 deg) * 111 km/deg / (0.5 km/cell) = 1700 cells in longitude = 1700 columns.
- We need to span about 8 degrees in latitude (44 N to 36 N). This works out to about 8 deg * 111 km/deg / (0.5 km/cell) = 1776 cells in latitude = 1776 rows.
- The number of grid cells per map unit. This is equal to 100 km/map unit / (0.5 km/cell) = 200 cells/map unit
- The grid cell coordinates of the center of the map. Since we want the center of the map to be the center of our grid, and since we have an even number of rows and columns in our grid, the center of our grid will be at the joint corner of the center four cells. But since grid cell coordinates are measured relative to the center of the upper left cell, it turns out that the grid cell coordinates of the center of the map are (1700 columns / 2) - 0.5 = column 849.5 and (1776 rows / 2) - 0.5 = row 887.5.
We now have all the information we need to create the gpd file, called Colorado500.gpd in the ms2gt/grids directory, or copy Colorado500.gpd from the ms2gt/tutorial_3 directory to the ms2gt/grids directory:
Colorado.mpp map projection parameters # azimuthal equal area
1700 1776 columns rows #
200 grid cells per map unit # 500 meters
849.5 887.5 origin column, row # center at 40N 150W
Once Colorado500.gpd has been created in the ms2gt/grids directory, use gtest to check that the latitude and longitude values of the upper left and lower right corners are close to what we want and that the center is exactly what we want:
enter .gpd file name: Colorado500.gpd
assuming old style fixed format file
enter lat lon:
enter r s: 0 0
lat,lon = 43.875530 -110.300537 status = 1
col,row = -0.000061 0.000366 status = 1
enter r s: 1699 1775
lat,lon = 35.909435 -100.283951 status = 1
col,row = 1699.000000 1774.999634 status = 1
enter r s: 849.5 887.5
lat,lon = 40.000000 -105.000000 status = 1
col,row = 849.500000 887.500000 status = 1
enter r s:
enter .gpd file name:
You can see that the upper left corner values of 43.875530 -110.300537 are close to our target values of 44 N and 110 W ,and that the lower right corner values of 35.909435 -100.283951 are close to our target values of 36 N and 100 W. The center values are exactly equal to our target value of 40 N 105 W.
In the ms2gt/tutorial_3 directory, create a text file called latlonlist.txt, and add the following two lines:
Run the shell script containing the mod10_l2.pl command by changing to the ms2gt/tutorial_3 directory, and then typing:
You'll see messages display while the mod10_l2.pl script runs various IDL and C programs.
In this example, the programs are:
- extract_latlon - an IDL procedure for extracting latitude and longitude data from a MOD10_L2 or MOD03 file. This program calls another IDL procedure, modis_ancillary_read. In this example, extract_latlon is called twice, once for each of the two MOD03 files. Two binary floating-point files are created per call containing latitude and longitude data, respectively. The mod10_l2.pl script concatenates the two latitude files and the two longitude files to create a single latitude file and a single longitude file, and the pre-concatenated files are deleted.
- extract_chan - an IDL procedure for extracting channel data from a MOD10_L2 file. This program calls another IDL procedure, modis_snow_read. In this example, extract_chan is called four times: two times for each of the two MOD10_L2 files; on each call, channel 1 or channel 2 is extracted. One binary byte file is created per call containing the channel data. The mod10_l2.pl script concatenates each pair of channel files, creates two concatenated channel files, and then deletes the pre-concatenated channel files.
- ll2cr - a C program for converting latitude, longitude pairs to column, row pairs for a particular grid. The grid specified in this example is Colorado500.gpd. The concatenated latitude and longitude files are read and two binary floating-point files are created containing column and row numbers, respectively. The mod10_l2.pl script then deletes the concatenated latitude and longitude files.
- interp_colrow - an IDL procedure for interpolating column, row pairs from a lower-resolution swath format to a higher-resolution swath format, in this case from 1 km to 500 m. The interpolation must be performed on a scan's worth of data at a time because the column and row numbers are discontinuities at scan boundaries. The interp_colrow procedure calls a function called congridx for each scan's worth of column and row arrays. The congridx function is called once for the column array and once for the row array. The congridx function first performs an extrapolation of the given array to a slightly expanded array, which it then interpolates (bicubic interpolation is used here) to a fully expanded array. The final array is extracted from the fully expanded array. The mod10_l2.pl script then deletes the pre-interpolated column and row files.
- fornav - a C program for performing forward navigation from a swath to a grid. In this example, fornav is called two times, once for each of the two concatenated channel files. On each call, the column and row files are read as well. An elliptical weighted maximum algorithm is applied during forward navigation to minimize holes and aliasing in the gridded data. One binary byte file is created per call containing the gridded data. The mod10_l2.pl script then deletes the concatenated channel files as well as the column and row files.
The final message should contain the string:
MOD10_L2: MESSAGE: done
Enter the command:
ls -l *.img
You should see something like this:
-rw-r--r-- 1 haran nsidc 3019200 Apr 27 13:04 colo_2000269_1745_rawm_snow_01700_01776.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 haran nsidc 3019200 Apr 27 13:04 colo_2000269_1745_rawm_snqa_01700_01776.img
Each file contains a gridded array of 1700 columns and 1776 rows of binary byte values (1700 * 1776 * 1 = 3019200 bytes).
The file naming convention for gridded MOD10_L2 files is as follows:
- <tag> is the mod10_l2.pl tag parameter
- <conversion> is:
- raw - raw (1-byte unsigned integers)
- <weight_type> is:
- m - maximum
- snow - Channel 1 - Snow Cover - 8-bit unsigned
- See Custom Local Attributes for the Snow_Cover Field for a table of coded values.
- snqa - Channel 2 - Snow Cover PixelQA - 8-bit unsigned
- See MODIS Snow Cover Bit Processing for a description of coded values.
- <chan> is the channel name and is one of:
- <columns> is the number of columns in the grid
- <rows> is the number of rows in the grid