Abstract

The scientific community requires long-term data records with well-characterized uncertainty and suitable for modeling terrestrial ecosystems and energy cycles at regional and global scales. This paper presents the methodology currently developed in EUMETSAT within its Satellite Application Facility for Land Surface Analysis (LSA SAF) to generate biophysical variables from the Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) on board MSG 1-4 (Meteosat 8-11) geostationary satellites. Using this methodology, the LSA SAF generates and disseminates at a time a suite of vegetation products, such as the leaf area index (LAI), the fraction of the photosynthetically active radiation absorbed by vegetation (FAPAR) and the fractional vegetation cover (FVC), for the whole Meteosat disk at two temporal frequencies, daily and 10-days. The FVC algorithm relies on a novel stochastic spectral mixture model which addresses the variability of soils and vegetation types using statistical distributions whereas the LAI and FAPAR algorithms use statistical relationships general enough for global applications. An overview of the LSA SAF SEVIRI/MSG vegetation products, including expert knowledge and quality assessment of its internal consistency is provided. The climate data record (CDR) is freely available in the LSA SAF, offering more than fifteen years (2004-present) of homogeneous time series required for climate and environmental applications. The high frequency and good temporal continuity of SEVIRI products addresses the needs of near-real-time users and are also suitable for long-term monitoring of land surface variables. The study also evaluates the potential of the SEVIRI/MSG vegetation products for environmental applications, spanning from accurate monitoring of vegetation cycles to resolving long-term changes of vegetation.

Highlights

  • Observations and monitoring are essential components of Global Framework for Climate Services initiative [1,2] that contribute significantly to meet the needs of climate research services

  • This paper presents the methodology currently developed in EUMETSAT within its Satellite Application Facility for Land Surface Analysis (LSA SAF) to generate biophysical variables from the Spinning Enhanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) on board Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) 1-4 (Meteosat 8-11) geostationary satellites

  • The LSA SAF generates and disseminates at a time a suite of vegetation products, such as the leaf area index (LAI), the fraction of the photosynthetically active radiation absorbed by vegetation (FAPAR) and the fractional vegetation cover (FVC), for the whole Meteosat disk at two temporal frequencies, daily and 10-days

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Summary

Introduction

Observations and monitoring are essential components of Global Framework for Climate Services initiative [1,2] that contribute significantly to meet the needs of climate research services. The LSA SAF provides variables for the characterization of terrestrial ecosystems and their role in the energy balance of Earth, such as land surface fluxes and three important biophysical variables related with the amount, structure and state of vegetation: Leaf Area Index (LAI), Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR) and Fractional Vegetation Cover (FVC) [6]. These variables are widely used in many land-surface vegetation, climate, and crop production models [7,8,9,10,11,12,13].

Algorithm Description
LAI Algorithm
FAPAR Algorithm
Products Uncertainty Estimation
Potential Applications of SEVIRI Vegetation Products
Application 3

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