Assessment and extension of the MODIS FPAR products in temperate forests of the eastern United States

Spatial and temporal variability in the quality of the collection 4 and 5 MODIS FPAR products were examined over a 1.1 million km2 region dominated by temperate forests. The MODIS FPAR products were parsed into different quality levels based on the retrieval method of the FPAR estimates, and the spatial coverage of the different quality MODIS subsets was examined through time and by land cover. The spatial extent of good quality FPAR estimates, derived from the main radiative transfer algorithm without saturation, was found to be quite limited, particularly during the growing season. The majority of the MODIS C4 FPAR retrievals were derived from the back‐up, empirically based algorithm. The C5 products available to date showed greater data quality but still had limitations in forested areas. As an alternative to using the lower‐quality MODIS FPAR data, we explored the utility of estimating FPAR from the more spatially extensive (and higher resolution) MODIS NDVI product using a simple, regionally based linear regression. A strong linear relationship between high quality MODIS NDVI and FPAR products within our study site was found, indicating its utility for estimating FPAR at regional scales where good quality retrievals from the MODIS algorithm are not available and where higher resolution FPAR maps are desired. We discuss these results and their significance for down‐stream MODIS users.

[1]  R. Fensholt,et al.  Evaluation of MODIS LAI, fAPAR and the relation between fAPAR and NDVI in a semi-arid environment using in situ measurements , 2004 .

[2]  C. Tucker,et al.  Climate-Driven Increases in Global Terrestrial Net Primary Production from 1982 to 1999 , 2003, Science.

[3]  Y. Knyazikhin,et al.  Effect of foliage spatial heterogeneity in the MODIS LAI and FPAR algorithm over broadleaf forests , 2003 .

[4]  Frédéric Baret,et al.  Special Issue on Global Land Product Validation , 2006, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[5]  Scott J. Goetz,et al.  Validation of MODIS F/sub PAR/ products in boreal forests of Alaska , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[6]  Ranga B. Myneni,et al.  Time‐series validation of MODIS land biophysical products in a Kalahari woodland, Africa , 2005 .

[7]  Thomas S. Pagano,et al.  Prelaunch characteristics of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on EOS-AM1 , 1998, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[8]  C. Justice,et al.  A framework for the validation of MODIS Land products , 2002 .

[9]  Steven W. Running,et al.  Comparisons of land cover and LAI estimates derived from ETM+ and MODIS for four sites in North America: a quality assessment of 2000/2001 provisional MODIS products , 2003 .

[10]  Rasmus Fensholt,et al.  MODIS leaf area index products: from validation to algorithm improvement , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[11]  P. Sellers.  Canopy reflectance, photosynthesis and transpiration , 1985 .

[12]  Maosheng Zhao,et al.  A Continuous Satellite-Derived Measure of Global Terrestrial Primary Production , 2004 .

[13]  Scott J. Goetz,et al.  Comparison and sensitivity analysis of instruments and radiometric methods for LAI estimation: assessments from a boreal forest site , 2004 .

[14]  S. Running,et al.  Global products of vegetation leaf area and fraction absorbed PAR from year one of MODIS data , 2002 .

[15]  D. Roy,et al.  An overview of MODIS Land data processing and product status , 2002 .

[16]  Ranga B. Myneni,et al.  Analysis of leaf area index and fraction of PAR absorbed by vegetation products from the terra MODIS sensor: 2000-2005 , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.

[17]  Tim R. McVicar,et al.  Assessment of the MODIS LAI product for Australian ecosystems , 2006 .

[18]  A. Tatem,et al.  Terra and Aqua: new data for epidemiology and public health. , 2004, International journal of applied earth observation and geoinformation : ITC journal.

[19]  J. Privette,et al.  Early spatial and temporal validation of MODIS LAI product in the Southern Africa Kalahari , 2002 .

[20]  S. Running,et al.  MODIS Leaf Area Index (LAI) And Fraction Of Photosynthetically Active Radiation Absorbed By Vegetation (FPAR) Product , 1999 .

[21]  S. Liang,et al.  A hybrid inversion method for mapping leaf area index from MODIS data: experiments and application to broadleaf and needleleaf canopies , 2005 .

[22]  Alan H. Strahler,et al.  Global land cover mapping from MODIS: algorithms and early results , 2002 .

[23]  Scott J. Goetz,et al.  Mapping net primary production and related biophysical variables with remote sensing: Application to the BOREAS region , 1999 .

[24]  R. Dickinson,et al.  Comparison of seasonal and spatial variations of leaf area index and fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Common Land Model , 2004 .

[25]  Dirk Pflugmacher,et al.  Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group 7-2006 MODIS land cover and LAI Collection 4 product quality across nine sites in the western hemisphere , 2018 .

[26]  H. Mooney,et al.  Modeling the Exchanges of Energy, Water, and Carbon Between Continents and the Atmosphere , 1997, Science.

[27]  Gautam Bisht,et al.  Estimation of the net radiation using MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) data for clear sky days , 2005 .

[28]  F. Baret,et al.  Potentials and limits of vegetation indices for LAI and APAR assessment , 1991 .

[29]  C. Woodcock,et al.  Evaluation of the MODIS LAI algorithm at a coniferous forest site in Finland , 2004 .

[30]  Ranga B. Myneni,et al.  Analysis and optimization of the MODIS leaf area index algorithm retrievals over broadleaf forests , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.