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Access and Visualization of MASTER L2 Land Surface Temperature and Emissivity

Overview

The MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) Level 2 (L2) dataset provides land surface temperature (LST) and emissivity derived from the instrument’s thermal infrared (TIR) bands. Unlike the L1B radiance data, which is organized as one data collection per campaign, the L2 product is a cross-campaign Facility Instrument Collection that aggregates standardized L2 retrievals from all MASTER deployments since 1998.

L2 retrievals use the ASTER Temperature-Emissivity Separation (TES) algorithm combined with the MODTRAN radiative transfer model for atmospheric correction. Emissivity is retrieved in six TIR bands spanning 8.58–12.13 µm. L2 files are distributed in HDF-5 format.

In this tutorial we use earthaccess to discover and access MASTER L2 data and then visualize land surface temperature and emissivity.

Datasets Used

DatasetDOIConcept ID
MASTER: Level 2 Emissivity and Land Surface TemperatureHulley et al. (2026)C4092063695-ORNL_CLOUD

Learning Objectives

  • Search the MASTER L2 Facility Instrument Collection using campaign keyword

  • Stream a HDF-5 L2 granule directly from the Earthdata Cloud using earthaccess and xarray

  • Explore the HDF-5 file structure and read and visualize LST and emissivity variables

Prerequisites

A free NASA Earthdata Login account is required. See the prerequisites page for setup instructions.

Import Libraries

Authentication

Use earthaccess.login() to authenticate with your NASA Earthdata Login credentials. If you have a .netrc file configured, login will complete without prompting.

Search the MASTER L2 Collection

The MASTER Level 2 Facility Instrument Collection (doi:10.3334/ORNLDAAC/2489) aggregates L2 retrievals from all MASTER campaigns. We can search the granules directly using earthaccess.

Collections found: 1
  Title    : MASTER: Level 2 Emissivity and Land Surface Temperature
  ShortName: MASTER_L2_Emiss_LST_2489
  ConceptID: C4092063695-ORNL_CLOUD
  Version  : 1
  File Size  : 538.973 GB
  File format  : HDF5
  Citation : Hulley, G. C., Hook, S. J., La, T. T., & Rivera, G. (2026). MASTER: Level 2 Emissivity and Land Surface Temperature (Version 1). ORNL Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/2489

Search for L2 granules for a project

We search for L2 granules within for NASA’s GEMx project. The Geological Earth Mapping Experiment (GEMx) is a joint campaign between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to map portions of the western United States for critical minerals using advanced airborne imaging, inclding AVIRIS and MASTER instruments.

Granules found for GEMx project: 665

Let’s inspect the first granule.

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Explore L2 Granule Footprints

We convert granule metadata into a geopandas dataframe.

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Let’s first plot time range of the granules collected for the NASA GEMx campaign.

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As we can see in the above chart, several MASTER flights were flown for GEMx campaign during 2003-2026.

Now, we can also plot the granule boundaries in a map.

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Export granule bounds for GIS

The granule information can also be exported to a GeoJSON format and imported into a GIS software.

Open a L2 Granule from the Cloud

MASTER L2 files are in HDF-5 format. We use earthaccess.open() to obtain the file-like objects and read them directly with xarray, not needing local download.

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Opened granule: MASTERL2_2364900_01_20230425_1733_1751_V02_B200_SV01.hdf5
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Explore the file structure

Let’s list all the variables and dimensions of the datasest. The dataset has four variables Emissivity, LST, Lat, Lon and QAmap.

xarray.Dataset {
dimensions:
	phony_dim_0 = 6738 ;
	phony_dim_1 = 716 ;
	phony_dim_2 = 6 ;

variables:
	float32 Emissivity(phony_dim_0, phony_dim_1, phony_dim_2) ;
		Emissivity:description = Atmospheric Corrected MASTER Emissivity - TES corrected bands ;
		Emissivity:wavelength = [ 8.3   8.61  9.04 10.62 11.32 12.13] ;
		Emissivity:wavelength units = Micrometers ;
	float32 LST(phony_dim_0, phony_dim_1) ;
		LST:band names = LST (K) ;
		LST:description = Temperature (K) - TES LST ;
	float32 Lat(phony_dim_0, phony_dim_1) ;
		Lat:description = Latitude ;
		Lat:units = degrees ;
	float32 Lon(phony_dim_0, phony_dim_1) ;
		Lon:description = Longitude ;
		Lon:units = degrees ;
	float32 QAmap(phony_dim_0, phony_dim_1) ;
		QAmap:description = QA data from TES algorithm: 1 is divergence, 0 is convergence ;

// global attributes:
	:Build = 200 ;
	:HDF5_Version = 1.14.2 ;
	:Software Version = 01 ;
	:acquisition_time = 2023-04-25 17:33:04 ;
	:description = Atmospheric Corrected MASTER Land Surface Temperature (Kelvin), Emissivity - TES corrected bands (Micrometers), and QAmap (1 - divergence, 0 - convergence) ;
	:h5py_version = 3.10.0 ;
	:modification_time = 2025-06-03 02:42:53 ;
}

Assign Coordinates

Lat and Lon variables provide per-pixel geolocation. Let’s assigned them as the coordinates for the dataset so we can use it later for plotting.

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Land Surface Temperature

The LST variable holds per-pixel surface temperature in Kelvin.

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Now, Let’s print minimum and maximum LST values.

LST range (K):  292.20 – 433.70

We display the LST variable in degrees Celsius in the following, where surface temperature is represented from cool (dark) to hot (bright).

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Emissivity

The TES algorithm retrieves emissivity in six thermal infrared (TIR) bands corresponding to spectral regions between 8.3 and 12.11 µm. Emissivity values are dimensionless (0–1), where 1.0 is a perfect blackbody.

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Let’s print minumum and maximum emissivity values for each of the 6 bands

Emissivity range for Band 8.3 µm:  0.68 – 1.00
Emissivity range for Band 8.61 µm:  0.69 – 0.99
Emissivity range for Band 9.04 µm:  0.64 – 0.99
Emissivity range for Band 10.62 µm:  0.77 – 0.99
Emissivity range for Band 11.32 µm:  0.67 – 0.99
Emissivity range for Band 12.13 µm:  0.60 – 0.99

Now, let’s visualize all six retrieved emissivity bands. Emissivity near 1.0 indicates a near-perfect blackbody. Water and dense vegetation have higher emissivity values. Lower emissivity values are typical of bare soils, rocks, and deserts.

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Emissivity for a Selected Pixel

We select the pixel with the highest LST (hot, dry surface) and a second pixel with the lowest LST for comparing how emissivity varies across the bands.

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For access to the underlying L1B calibrated radiance used to derive these L2 products, see the MASTER L1B notebook.

References
  1. Hulley, G. C., Hook, S. J., La, T. T., & Rivera, G. (2026). MASTER: Level 2 Emissivity and Land Surface Temperature. ORNL Distributed Active Archive Center. 10.3334/ORNLDAAC/2489