ECOSTRESS Tiled Water Use Efficiency Instantaneous L4 Global 70 m v003

The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52° N and 52° S latitudes. The ECOSTRESS Tiled Water Use Efficiency Instantaneous L4 Global 70 m (ECO_L4T_WUE) Version 2 data product provides Water Use Efficiency (WUE) data generated by dividing the Breathing Earth System Simulator (BESS) Gross Primary Production (GPP) by the Priestley-Taylor Jet Propulsion Laboratory Soil Moisture (PT-JPL-SM) transpiration to estimate WUE, the ratio of grams of carbon that plants absorb to kilograms of water that plants release. The product provides a BESS GPP estimate that represents the amount of carbon surrounding the plants. The ECO_L4T_WUE Version 2 data product is available globally in Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) format and uses a modified version of the Military Grid Reference System (MGRS), which divides Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) zones into square tiles that are 109.8 km by 109.8 km with a 70 meter (m) spatial resolution. Each granule contains separate COG files for each layer: Water Use Efficiency (WUE), Water Gross Primary Production, cloud mask, and water mask. A low-resolution browse is also available showing WUE as a stretched image with a color ramp in JPEG format. Known Issues * Data acquisition gap: ECOSTRESS was launched on June 29, 2018, and moved to autonomous science operations on August 20, 2018, following a successful in-orbit checkout period. On September 29, 2018, ECOSTRESS experienced an anomaly with its primary mass storage unit (MSU). ECOSTRESS has a primary and secondary MSU (A and B). On December 5, 2018, the instrument was switched to the secondary MSU, and science operations resumed. On March 14, 2019, the secondary MSU experienced a similar anomaly, temporarily halting science acquisitions. On May 15, 2019, a new data acquisition approach was implemented, and science acquisitions resumed. To optimize the new acquisition approach, only Thermal Infrared (TIR) bands 2, 4, and 5 are being downloaded. The data products are the same as before, but the bands not downloaded contain fill values (L1 radiance and L2 emissivity). This approach was implemented from May 15, 2019, through April 28, 2023. * Data acquisition gap: From February 8 to February 16, 2020, an ECOSTRESS instrument issue resulted in a data anomaly that created striping in band 4 (10.5 micron). These data products have been reprocessed and are available for download. No ECOSTRESS data were acquired on February 17, 2020, due to the instrument being in SAFEHOLD. Data acquired following the anomaly have not been affected. * Data acquisition: ECOSTRESS has now successfully returned to 5-band mode after being in 3-band mode since 2019. This feature was successfully enabled following a Data Processing Unit firmware update (version 4.1) to the payload on April 28, 2023. To better balance contiguous science data scene variables, 3-band collection is currently being interleaved with 5-band acquisitions over the orbital day/night periods. * Solar Array Obstruction: Some ECOSTRESS scenes may be affected by solar array obstructions from the International Space Station (ISS), potentially impacting data quality of obstructed pixels. The 'FieldOfViewObstruction' metadata field is included in all Version 2 products to indicate possible obstructions: * Before October 24, 2024 (orbits prior to 35724): The field is present but was not populated and does not reliably identify affected scenes. * On or after October 24, 2024 (starting with orbit 35724): The field is populated and generally accurate, except for late December 2024, when a temporary processing error may have caused false positives. * A list of scenes confirmed to be affected by obstructions is available and is recommended for verifying historical data (before October 24, 2024) and scenes from late December 2024. * The ISS native pointing information is coarse relative to ECOSTRESS pixels, so ECOSTRESS geolocation is improved through image matching with a basemap. Metadata in the L1B_GEO file shows the success of this geolocation improvement, using categorizations "best", "good", "suspect", and "poor". We recommend that users use only "best" and "good" scenes for evaluations where geolocation is important (e.g., comparison to field sites). For some scenes, this metadata is not reflected in the higher-level products (e.g., land surface temperature, evapotranspiration, etc.). While this metadata is always available in the geolocation product, to save users additional download, we have produced a summary text file that includes the geolocation quality flags for all scenes from launch to present. At a later date, all higher-level products will reflect the geolocation quality flag correctly (the field name is GeolocationAccuracyQA). * During the time period of May 15th, 2025, through July 1st, 2025, ECOSTRESS data was noisier than expected. Cycling the payload resolved the issue, but researchers should use all levels of ECOSTRESS data acquired during this time period with caution. * During the time period of January 1st, 2023, through September 30th, 2023, ECOSTRESS STARS and the resulting ET products are considered lower quality due to the priors used in the STARS model. The bug was corrected, and the lower quality data will be reprocessed. * Coarse Resolution Artifacts: Users may sometimes observe coarse resolution (~500m - 1km) artifacts in the L3 and L4 gridded and tiled products. These artifacts are caused by corresponding artifacts within the ECOSTRESS Tiled Ancillary NDVI and Albedo L2 Global 70 m (ECO_L2T_STARS) Version 2 data product. The ECO_L2T_STARS product is produced through a data fusion of Suomi NPP VIIRS (~500 m - 1 km resolution) and Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 (HLS, 30 m) products. When there is significant temporal lag between HLS acquisitions, the VIIRS data dominates, which can produce coarse resolution artifacts in the ECO_L2T_STARS product. This typically corresponds to relatively large uncertainty values.

The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52° N and 52° S latitudes. The ECOSTRESS Gridded Water Use Efficiency Instantaneous L4 Global 70 m (ECO_L4G_WUE) Version 2 data product provides Water Use Efficiency (WUE) data generated by dividing the Breathing Earth System Simulator (BESS) Gross Primary Production (GPP) by the Priestley-Taylor Jet Propulsion Laboratory Soil Moisture (PT-JPL-SM) transpiration to estimate WUE, the ratio of grams of carbon that plants absorb to kilograms of water that plants release. The product provides a BESS GPP estimate that represents the amount of carbon surrounding the plants. The ECO_L4G_WUE Version 2 data product is available globally and projected to a globally snapped 0.0006° grid with a 70 meter spatial resolution and is distributed in HDF5. Each granule contains layers of Water Use Efficiency (WUE), Water Gross Primary Production (GPP), cloud mask, and water mask. A low-resolution browse is also available showing daily WUE as a stretched image with a color ramp in JPEG format. Known Issues * Data acquisition gap: ECOSTRESS was launched on June 29, 2018, and moved to autonomous science operations on August 20, 2018, following a successful in-orbit checkout period. On September 29, 2018, ECOSTRESS experienced an anomaly with its primary mass storage unit (MSU). ECOSTRESS has a primary and secondary MSU (A and B). On December 5, 2018, the instrument was switched to the secondary MSU, and science operations resumed. On March 14, 2019, the secondary MSU experienced a similar anomaly, temporarily halting science acquisitions. On May 15, 2019, a new data acquisition approach was implemented, and science acquisitions resumed. To optimize the new acquisition approach, only Thermal Infrared (TIR) bands 2, 4, and 5 are being downloaded. The data products are the same as before, but the bands not downloaded contain fill values (L1 radiance and L2 emissivity). This approach was implemented from May 15, 2019, through April 28, 2023. * Data acquisition gap: From February 8 to February 16, 2020, an ECOSTRESS instrument issue resulted in a data anomaly that created striping in band 4 (10.5 micron). These data products have been reprocessed and are available for download. No ECOSTRESS data were acquired on February 17, 2020, due to the instrument being in SAFEHOLD. Data acquired following the anomaly have not been affected. * Data acquisition: ECOSTRESS has now successfully returned to 5-band mode after being in 3-band mode since 2019. This feature was successfully enabled following a Data Processing Unit firmware update (version 4.1) to the payload on April 28, 2023. To better balance contiguous science data scene variables, 3-band collection is currently being interleaved with 5-band acquisitions over the orbital day/night periods. * Solar Array Obstruction: Some ECOSTRESS scenes may be affected by solar array obstructions from the International Space Station (ISS), potentially impacting data quality of obstructed pixels. The 'FieldOfViewObstruction' metadata field is included in all Version 2 products to indicate possible obstructions: * Before October 24, 2024 (orbits prior to 35724): The field is present but was not populated and does not reliably identify affected scenes. * On or after October 24, 2024 (starting with orbit 35724): The field is populated and generally accurate, except for late December 2024, when a temporary processing error may have caused false positives. * A list of scenes confirmed to be affected by obstructions is available and is recommended for verifying historical data (before October 24, 2024) and scenes from late December 2024. * The ISS native pointing information is coarse relative to ECOSTRESS pixels, so ECOSTRESS geolocation is improved through image matching with a basemap. Metadata in the L1B_GEO file shows the success of this geolocation improvement, using categorizations "best", "good", "suspect", and "poor". We recommend that users use only "best" and "good" scenes for evaluations where geolocation is important (e.g., comparison to field sites). For some scenes, this metadata is not reflected in the higher-level products (e.g., land surface temperature, evapotranspiration, etc.). While this metadata is always available in the geolocation product, to save users additional download, we have produced a summary text file that includes the geolocation quality flags for all scenes from launch to present. At a later date, all higher-level products will reflect the geolocation quality flag correctly (the field name is GeolocationAccuracyQA). * During the time period of May 15th, 2025, through July 1st, 2025, ECOSTRESS data was noisier than expected. Cycling the payload resolved the issue, but researchers should use all levels of ECOSTRESS data acquired during this time period with caution. * During the time period of January 1st, 2023, through September 30th, 2023, ECOSTRESS STARS and the resulting ET products are considered lower quality due to the priors used in the STARS model. The bug was corrected, and the lower quality data will be reprocessed. * Coarse Resolution Artifacts: Users may sometimes observe coarse resolution (~500m - 1km) artifacts in the L3 and L4 gridded and tiled products. These artifacts are caused by corresponding artifacts within the ECOSTRESS Tiled Ancillary NDVI and Albedo L2 Global 70 m (ECO_L2T_STARS) Version 2 data product. The ECO_L2T_STARS product is produced through a data fusion of Suomi NPP VIIRS (~500 m - 1 km resolution) and Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 (HLS, 30 m) products. When there is significant temporal lag between HLS acquisitions, the VIIRS data dominates, which can produce coarse resolution artifacts in the ECO_L2T_STARS product. This typically corresponds to relatively large uncertainty values.

The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52° N and 52° S latitudes. The ECOSTRESS Tiled Evaporative Stress Index PT-JPL Instantaneous Level 4 Global 70 m (ECO_L4T_ESI) Version 3 data product uses the Priestley-Taylor Jet Propulsion Laboratory Soil Moisture (PT-JPL-SM) model to generate estimates of both actual and potential instantaneous evapotranspiration (ET). The potential evapotranspiration (PET) estimate represents the maximum expected ET if there were no water stress to plants on the ground. The ratio of the actual ET estimate to the PET estimate forms an index representing the water stress of plants. This tiled data product uses a modified version of the Military Grid Reference System (MGRS), which divides Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) zones into square tiles that are 109.8 km by 109.8 km with a 70 meter (m) spatial resolution. The ECO_L4T_ESI Version 3 data product is provided in Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) format, and each variable is distributed as a separate COG. This product contains four variables including Evaporative Stress Index (ESI), PET, cloud mask, and water mask. Known Issues * Solar Array Obstruction: Some ECOSTRESS scenes may be affected by solar array obstructions from the ISS, potentially impacting data quality in obstructed pixels. The 'FieldOfViewObstruction' metadata field is reliably populated and accurate for all products generated on or after October 2024, following fixes to the Product Generation Executive (PGE) docker configuration and updates to the L1A_RAW_PIX software. Prior to October 2024, the field was not reliably populated; a separate list of confirmed affected scenes was maintained and is recommended for verifying historical data. * Historical acquisition gaps and anomalies (2018–2023): Irrecoverable data loss occurred due to Mass Storage Unit (MSU) failures, resulting in permanent gaps in the observational record where no ECOSTRESS data was acquired during the following periods: - September 29, 2018 – December 4, 2018 (primary MSU failure) - March 14, 2019 – May 14, 2019 (secondary MSU failure) - February 17, 2020 (instrument in SAFEHOLD mode) - Other early issues, including band 4 striping (February 8–16, 2020), 3-band mode limitations (May 15, 2019–April 28, 2023), and noisy data periods (e.g., May–July 2025), have been mitigated through reprocessing, firmware updates, and instrument recovery. Version 3 products incorporate these improvements where data exists and are unaffected by ongoing issues, but the permanent historical gaps remain, and caution is advised for time-series analyses spanning affected periods. * Geolocation considerations: While geolocation is improved in Version 3 tiled products (fixed MGRS grid), gridded products may reference legacy "GeolocationAccuracyQA" flags. Use "best" and "good" scenes for applications sensitive to precise positioning.

The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52° N and 52° S latitudes. The ECOSTRESS Tiled Evapotranspiration Instantaneous and Daytime L3 Global 70 m (ECO_L3T_JET) Version 3 data product provides instantaneous canopy transpiration, leaf surface evaporation, and soil moisture evaporation using an ensemble model approach. The formulas used for each layer are included in the variable name, which are listed below. This data product is tiled using a modified version of the Military Grid Reference System (MGRS), which divides Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) zones into square tiles that are 109.8 km by 109.8 km with a 70 meter (m) spatial resolution. The ECO_L3T_JET Version 3 data product is provided in Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) format, and each variable is distributed as a separate COG. This product contains 14 variables including Priestley-Taylor Jet Propulsion Laboratory Soil Moisture (PT-JPL-SM) Instantaneous (PTJPLSMinst), PT-JPL-SM Daily (PTJPLSMdaily), Surface Temperature Initiated Closure Jet Propulsion Laboratory (STIC-JPL) Instantaneous(STICJPLinst), STIC-JPL Daily (STICJPLdaily), Breathing Earth System Simulator Jet Propulsion Laboratory (BESS-JPL) Daily (BESSJPLdaily), Penman-Monteith Jet Propulsion Laboratory (PM-JPL) Daily (PMJPLdaily), Daily Evapotranspiration (ETdaily), Instantaneous Evapotranspiration Uncertainty (Etuncertainty), PT-JPL-SM Canopy (PTJPLSMcanopy), STIC-JPL Canopy (STICJPLcanopy), PT-JPL-SM Soil (PTJPLSMsoil), PT-JPL-SM Interception (PTJPLSMinterception), cloud mask, and water mask. Known Issues * Solar Array Obstruction: Some ECOSTRESS scenes may be affected by solar array obstructions from the ISS, potentially impacting data quality in obstructed pixels. The 'FieldOfViewObstruction' metadata field is reliably populated and accurate for all products generated on or after October 2024, following fixes to the Product Generation Executive (PGE) docker configuration and updates to the L1A_RAW_PIX software. Prior to October 2024, the field was not reliably populated; a separate list of confirmed affected scenes was maintained and is recommended for verifying historical data. * Historical acquisition gaps and anomalies (2018–2023): Irrecoverable data loss occurred due to Mass Storage Unit (MSU) failures, resulting in permanent gaps in the observational record where no ECOSTRESS data was acquired during the following periods: - September 29, 2018 – December 4, 2018 (primary MSU failure) - March 14, 2019 – May 14, 2019 (secondary MSU failure) - February 17, 2020 (instrument in SAFEHOLD mode) - Other early issues, including band 4 striping (February 8–16, 2020), 3-band mode limitations (May 15, 2019–April 28, 2023), and noisy data periods (e.g., May–July 2025), have been mitigated through reprocessing, firmware updates, and instrument recovery. Version 3 products incorporate these improvements where data exists and are unaffected by ongoing issues, but the permanent historical gaps remain, and caution is advised for time-series analyses spanning affected periods. * Geolocation considerations: While geolocation is improved in Version 3 tiled products (fixed MGRS grid), gridded products may reference legacy "GeolocationAccuracyQA" flags. Use "best" and "good" scenes for applications sensitive to precise positioning.

The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52° N and 52° S latitudes. The ECOSTRESS Tiled Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity Instantaneous Level 2 Global 70 m (ECO_L2T_LSTE) Version 3 data product provides atmospherically corrected land surface temperature and emissivity (LST&E) values derived from the five thermal infrared (TIR) bands using the Temperature-Emissivity Separation (TES) algorithm. In addition, a Sea Surface Temperature (SST) layer is included that is valid over all water surfaces (ocean and inland water). The L2 LST&E and SST algorithms run on all pixels regardless of land, ocean, or cloud. This tiled data product is subset from the ECO_L2G_LSTE data product using a modified version of the Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) which divides Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) zones into square tiles that are 109.8 km by 109.8 km with a 70 meter (m) spatial resolution. The ECO_L2T_LSTE Version 3 data product is provided in Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) format, and each variable is distributed as a separate COG. Each granule contains 18 variables of LST, quality control flags (QC), band emissivities (bands 1-5), band emissivity error (bands 1-5), wideband emissivity (EmisWB), SST, cloud_mask, water_mask, view_zenith, and height. Known Issues * Solar Array Obstruction: Some ECOSTRESS scenes may be affected by solar array obstructions from the ISS, potentially impacting data quality in obstructed pixels. The 'FieldOfViewObstruction' metadata field is reliably populated and accurate for all products generated on or after October 2024, following fixes to the PGE docker configuration and updates to the L1A_RAW_PIX software. Prior to October 2024, the field was not reliably populated; a list of confirmed affected scenes was maintained and is recommended for verifying historical data. * Historical acquisition gaps and anomalies (2018–2023): Irrecoverable data loss occurred due to Mass Storage Unit (MSU) failures, resulting in permanent gaps in the observational record where no ECOSTRESS data was acquired. Other early issues, including band 4 striping (Feb 2020), 3-band TES mode limitations (May 2019–April 2023), and noisy data periods (e.g., May–July 2025), have been mitigated through reprocessing, firmware updates, and instrument recovery. Version 3 products incorporate these improvements where data exists and are unaffected by ongoing issues, but the permanent historical gaps remain, and caution is advised for time-series analyses spanning affected periods. * Product formats: Version 3 discontinues swath-based (non-gridded) HDF5 products for Level 2 LST&E and Cloud outputs. Only gridded (ECO_L2G_LSTE and ECO_L2G_CLOUD in HDF5) and tiled (ECO_L2T_LSTE in Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF) formats are available for Level 2 products. Swath-based products remain available for Level 1 products (e.g., ECO_L1B_RAD, ECO_L1B_GEO). Version 3 discontinues HDF5 products for Level 2 STARS, Level 3 Evapotranspiration, and Level 4 Evaporative Stress Index, and Water Use Efficiency outputs. Only tiled (Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF) formats remain available for these products. Users transitioning from Version 2 should verify compatibility with the new structures. * Geolocation considerations: While geolocation is improved in Collection 3 tiled products (fixed MGRS grid), gridded products may reference legacy "GeolocationAccuracyQA" flags. Use "best" and "good" scenes for applications sensitive to precise positioning.

The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52° N and 52° S latitudes. The ECOSTRESS Gridded Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity Instantaneous Level 2 Global 70 m (ECO_L2G_LSTE) Version 3 data product provides atmospherically corrected land surface temperature and emissivity (LST&E) values derived from the five thermal infrared (TIR) bands using the Temperature-Emissivity Separation (TES) algorithm. In addition, a Sea Surface Temperature (SST) variable is included that is valid over all water surfaces (ocean and inland water). The Level 2 LST&E and SST algorithms run on all pixels regardless of land, ocean, or cloud. This data product is projected to a globally snapped 0.0006° grid with a spatial resolution of 70 meters (m). The ECO_L2G_LSTE Version 3 data product is distributed in an HDF5 format file. Each granule contains 20 variables of LST, quality control flags (QC), band emissivities (bands 1-5), LST error, band emissivity error (bands 1-5), wideband emissivity (EmisWB), SST, precipitable water vapor (PWV), cloud_mask, water_mask, view_zenith, and height. Known Issues * Solar Array Obstruction: Some ECOSTRESS scenes may be affected by solar array obstructions from the ISS, potentially impacting data quality in obstructed pixels. The 'FieldOfViewObstruction' metadata field is reliably populated and accurate for all products generated on or after October 2024, following fixes to the PGE docker configuration and updates to the L1A_RAW_PIX software. Prior to October 2024, the field was not reliably populated; a list of confirmed affected scenes was maintained and is recommended for verifying historical data. * Historical acquisition gaps and anomalies (2018–2023): Irrecoverable data loss occurred due to Mass Storage Unit (MSU) failures, resulting in permanent gaps in the observational record where no ECOSTRESS data was acquired. Other early issues, including band 4 striping (Feb 2020), 3-band TES mode limitations (May 2019–April 2023), and noisy data periods (e.g., May–July 2025), have been mitigated through reprocessing, firmware updates, and instrument recovery. Version 3 products incorporate these improvements where data exists and are unaffected by ongoing issues, but the permanent historical gaps remain, and caution is advised for time-series analyses spanning affected periods. * Product formats: Version 3 discontinues swath-based (non-gridded) HDF5 products for Level 2 LST&E and Cloud outputs. Only gridded (ECO_L2G_LSTE and ECO_L2G_CLOUD in HDF5) and tiled (ECO_L2T_LSTE in Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF) formats are available for Level 2 products. Swath-based products remain available for Level 1 products (e.g., ECO_L1B_RAD, ECO_L1B_GEO). Version 3 discontinues HDF5 products for Level 2 STARS, Level 3 Evapotranspiration, and Level 4 Evaporative Stress Index, and Water Use Efficiency outputs. Only tiled (Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF) formats remain available for these products. Users transitioning from Version 2 should verify compatibility with the new structures. * Geolocation considerations: While geolocation is improved in Collection 3 tiled products (fixed Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) grid), gridded products may reference legacy "GeolocationAccuracyQA" flags. Use "best" and "good" scenes for applications sensitive to precise positioning.