Earthdata Forum

Dear forum members,

I am embarking on a new project that involves downloading the MCD18A1v061 Product for multiple years simultaneously. Ideally, I would like to obtain the data in TIFF format for my analysis purposes. However, I am open to alternative formats if TIFF is not readily available. I would greatly appreciate your guidance on the most efficient approach to accomplish this task.

Here are my specific questions:

1. Could you recommend a specific method or approach for downloading the MCD18A1v061 Product ? I would appreciate any instructions or guidance you can provide on how to proceed.

2. Are there any important considerations or limitations I should be aware of when working with this dataset? This could include data quality issues, metadata availability, or any other factors that might impact the analysis process.

3. What potential challenges or restrictions should I keep in mind when attempting to download data ?

I am grateful for any insights or suggestions you can offer. Thank you for your time and expertise.

Best regards,
Rishabh Oza

Hi Rishabh,
The native format of the MCD18A1 as is with all MODIS is HDF. Maybe other forum users have thoughts on changing the many files from HDF to Geotiff.

There are many different ways to access the data. You can alweays the Earthdata Search Tool: https://search.earthdata.nasa.gov/search
However, there are more automated ways to access large quantities of data please see our various scripts that will help you do that: https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/tools/data-prep-scripts/

There are some known issues, as a matter of fact if you could hold off until later this summer that would be ideal. The MCD18 products are scheduled to be reprocessed into V062. There are some projection issues that have necessitated this.

We always suggest when downloading data to break up the orders into smaller ones rather then submitting 1 large order. Just in case there are connections interruptions.
Please let us know if you have further questions.
Thanks,
Brett