AppEEARS vs. Other NASA Data Platforms

[njlyon_0.00]

How does AppEEARS (https://appeears.earthdatacloud.nasa.gov/) fit into the ecosystem of other NASA data portals (e.g., Worldview, Earthdata Search, Giovanni, etc.)?

[LP DAAC - dgolon]

Hi @njlyon_0.00 Thanks for the question. A lot of the different tools to access NASA Earthdata provide different functionalities such as visualizing or bulk downloading the data. AppEEARS is a great tool specifically if you are looking to subset data spatially, temporally and/or by band/layer. Using AppEEARS you'll also have the benefit of downloading data for specific geographic coordinates or over your study area via vector polygons. Your AppEEARS request will return not only the data values, but also any associated decoded quality data values! One of the coolest features of AppEEARS is that you not only get the data and quality information but it also provides that information via interactive visualizations of summary statistics, allowing you to preview and interact with your data before you download a single piece of it to your machine. Once you are ready to download, you'll get the data as well as supporting files including ISO compliant metadata, URLs for all of the source data used in the extraction so you know exactly which granules or scenes you are getting, instructions and details of your request, a JSON file that can be used to create a new request again -- great for sharing with remote colleagues, as well as statistics for your layers and lookup values for the quality bits. One of my personal favorite features if that if you do an Area request, AppEEARS will actually mosaic and project the data for you! It saves me a lot of time. Check it out and let us know what you think!

[njlyon_0.00]

Thank you so much for the clarification! I've used AppEEARS a bit (and loved it!) and was primarily asking just to be sure I shouldn't be using Earthdata Search instead. Seems like they serve different purposes so they are neither right nor wrong and I also love the mosaic + projection performed by AppEEARS!

[LP DAAC - dgolon]

Hi @njlyon_0.00 No problem! There are definitely many benefits to using Earthdata Search too. Personally, I recommend using Earthdata Search if you are interested in data that are not currently available in AppEEARS, as Earthdata Search provides access to 9,300 data products. I've had a few data users mention that they like the keyword filtering capability of Earthdata Search, as it helps them learn about different, new to them, data products that might be helpful for their research. I also frequently use Earthdata Search if I want to see a browse preview of the data before I download it, spatially it is really nice that Earthdata Search shows the browse preview overlaid on the map. It depends on what I'm working on in the moment but that can be really helpful for me. Quite a few data products in Earthdata Search have that capability. Depending on the dataset, Earthdata Search also provides some subsetting capabilities as well. The right EOSDIS tool for your project really just depends on your data and data access needs and personal preferences. Please let us know if you have any other questions! Thanks -- Danielle