Principal Investigator (PI): Kamel Didan, The University of Arizona

Phenology is the expression of the seasonal cycle of all biotic processes. It is the pulse of our planet, and is an essential and critical component of environmental science influencing biodiversity, species interactions, their ecological functioning, and their effects on fluxes of water, energy, and biogeochemical elements at various scales. Changes in phenology depict an integrated response to environmental change and provide valuable information for global change research, land degradation studies, integrated pest and invasive species management, drought monitoring, wildfire risk assessment, and agricultural production.

In this NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) project our multi-institution team of investigators plans to generate a seamless and consistent sensor independent Earth System Data Record (ESDR) and Climate Data Record quality measures of landscape phenology parameters and vegetation index, by fusing measurements from different satellite missions and sensors. We plan to use NASA's Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) daily surface reflectance and design sensor independent algorithms to be applied to these data sets. Our project is expected to generate, document, and deliver 30+ years of consistent and well characterized ESDR/CDR quality daily measurements of land surface VI and annual phenology parameters at a climate modeling grid (CMG, 0.05 deg) resolution.

In collaboration with, the newly established US National Phenology Network we will correlate remote sensing based estimate of phenology with ground observations. We aim at evaluating the consistency and accuracy of these products by comparing them with in situ growing season phenology observation over different biomes, latitudinal and elevational gradients.

We plan to distribute these products through the U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Center and separately via a PI web based interactive visualization system. We plan to enlist key science and modeling community users as well as the US-NPN in the process of evaluating the ESDR/CDR merits of these products. A user working group will advise this effort and link it with the wider national and international scientific community.

Visit the Vegetation Phenology site

MEaSUREs Vegetation Distributed Fields (VCF) data from NASA's Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC)