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Library · Noun reference

surface_reflectance

Multispectral surface-reflectance bands.

Quick facts

Fact Value
Semantic type Gridded environmental observations
Units by source sentinel2: default: source digital numbers / reflectance scaling
Spatial coverage Global land surfaces
Temporal resolution scene acquisition; nominal five-day constellation revisit
Available source flavors sentinel2

Usage

data.surface_reflectance(*, source='sentinel2', lat, lon, start, end, variables=None, bands=None, **kwargs)

Import with from cubedynamics import data. Keyword-only parameters and defaults above come from Python.

Available sources

Source Coverage Resolution Time Selection constraint
sentinel2 Global land surfaces 10, 20, or 60 m by band; CubeDynamics default 10 m 2015-present; scene acquisition; nominal five-day constellation revisit Scene-level cloud filtering does not remove every cloudy pixel.

Returned data

An xarray.DataArray named surface_reflectance, normally with time, band, y, x dimensions. time stores acquisition/observation times; y and x store grid coordinates in the declared CRS. Inspect the actual dimensions and CRS before combining sources.

Units are source-specific (above), not silently harmonized. Attributes include scientific_noun, source_flavor, source_variables, source_provider, source_product, spatial_query, temporal_query, crs, retrieved_at, data_state, and serving/schema provenance. See provenance helpers.

Minimal reproducible example

Network example: requires the provider and its optional dependencies. This is a real-data request, not an offline certification. For frozen inputs, use the reviewed notebooks.

from cubedynamics import data
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

cube = data.surface_reflectance(
    source="sentinel2", lat=40.0, lon=-105.25,
    start="2024-06-01", end="2024-06-03", variables=["B04", "B08"],
)
cube.isel(time=0, band=0).plot()
plt.show()

Quality and provenance

Source Lifecycle Revision Revision status Live health QA profile
sentinel2 implemented surface_reflectance.sentinel2@2026-08-26.1 VALIDATED STALE continuous_raster_static

Revision validity is not a claim that the live endpoint is available today. Certification evidence distinguishes reviewed fixtures from live checks. Each source's selection constraint above remains part of the interpretation.

See also