File Naming

NOAA CoastWatch MODIS products file naming convention is slightly different from the naming convention implemented by NASA. For Level-2 products, NOAA CoastWatch has replaced '.' with '_' for easier file management under multiple operating systems and all products are 5 minute granules. CoastWatch Level-3 products may include a composite flag and the product name [as it is called in the Level-2 dataset]. The composite flag is the letter 'C' followed by a number that indicates how many granules contribute to the composite product. The examples below should help in associating regional products with filenames:

File Naming Conventions

Level-2: MODISDataProduct_AYYYYDDD_TTTT.hdf
Level-3: [T]MODISDataProduct_AYYYYDDD_[C#]_TTTT_CoastWatchRegion_DerivedProduct.extension

Example: MODOCL2B_A2002112_C4_1610_1615_1750_1755_GM_chlora2.png
Where:

• MODISDataProduct may be one of:
  • MOD03: MODIS Geolocation file (contains Latitudes, Longitudes, Land/Sea Mask)
  • MOD28L2: MODIS Sea Surface Temperature Product
  • MODOCL2A: MODIS Ocean Color Group 1 (contains chlor_MODIS - Case-I algorithm)
  • MODOCL2B: MODIS Ocean Color Group 2 (contains chlor_a_2 - Case-II algorithm)
  Note: All Level-2 ocean products contain cloud mask and sun glint information for each pixel.
• AYYYYDDD: [ A (Terra) or P (Aqua) ] + four digit year + day of year.
• TTTT: Four digit starting time (HHMM or hour + minutes) of 5 minute granule. Minutes will always be in increments of 5 minutes (00,05,10,15,...,50,55).
• C#:
  • C: indicates composite/mosaic of granules
  • #: the number of granules used in the composite/mosaic
• CoastWatchRegion may be one of:
  • AK: Alaska
  • CB: Caribbean
  • EP: Eastern Tropical Pacific
  • GL: Great Lakes
  • GM: Gulf of Mexico
  • HI: Hawaii
  • PB: Pacific Basin
  • SE: Southeast
  • WC: West Coast
• DerivedProduct may be one of:
  • sst: Sea surface temperature degrees Celsius (Parameter #D1 daytime 11 micrometer)
  • chlorMODIS: Chlorophyll-a concentration mg/m3(Parameter #14 chlor_MODIS HPLC, empirical)
  • chlora2: Chlorophyll-a concentration mg/m3 (Parameter #26 chlor_a_2 SeaWiFS analog - OC3M)
• extension may be one of:
  • hdf: Hierarchical Data Format Earth Observing System (HDF-EOS v2.6 based on HDF4); 32-bit data
  • tif: GeoTIFF (version 1.8) based on TIFF Spec 6.0; 8-bit data with geolocation
  • png: Portable Network Graphics; 8-bit data
• [T]: Indicates thumbnail or reduced image size primarily for web display