Towards seamless global 30-meter terrestrial monitoring: Evaluating 2022 cloud free coverage of harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 (HLS) V2.0

IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters
By: , and 

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Abstract

Global observations at 30-m ground sampling distance (GSD) are now possible at a cadence of 1-3 days by combining Landsat 8 and 9 with Sentinel-2A and -2B satellites. Previous studies characterizing pixel-level Landsat-class measurement frequency used data from different sources but offered little information on observation availability after rigorous quality screening. This study examined the coverage frequency of HLS V2.0 data for 2022, the first year all four satellites data were available. These data have had quality control filtering and harmonization, and therefore reflect the spatial-temporal distribution of usable observations. On average, HLS data provide observations every 1.6 days at the global scale, and 2.2 days in the data-scarce tropical regions, regardless of cloud cover. The global mean and median cloud-free observations were 69 and 64, respectively. The frequency of good-quality observations varies geographically and seasonally due to changes in satellite swath overlap, cloud frequency, and solar illumination. High latitudes (>~75°N) exhibit the highest number of cloud-free observations between March and September. However, data are unavailable during winter months due to low solar elevation angles and boreal regions have a lower number of clear observations in the summer months. The tropical regions have the lowest number of clear observations. More frequent HLS observations could improve terrestrial monitoring. We mapped the monthly and weekly number of clear observations globally to show where HLS data could support monthly or sub-weekly time series applications.

Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Towards seamless global 30-meter terrestrial monitoring: Evaluating 2022 cloud free coverage of harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 (HLS) V2.0
Series title IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters
DOI 10.1109/LGRS.2025.3533923
Edition Online First
Year Published 2025
Language English
Publisher IEEE Xplore
Contributing office(s) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center
Description 5 p.
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