This data set provides a map of selected areas with defined tree canopy cover over the circumpolar taiga-tundra ecotone (TTE). Canopy cover was derived from the 500-meter MODIS Vegetation Continuous Fields (VCF) product as averaged over six years from 2000-2005 and processed as described in Ranson et al. (2011). This process identified patches of low tree canopy cover which are indicative of the transition from forest to tundra and differentiate the circumpolar taiga-tundra ecotone for the 2000-2005 period. The TTE is the Earth's longest vegetation transition zone and stretches for more than 13,400 km around Arctic North America, Scandinavia, and Eurasia. In Eurasia, the map extends from 60 degrees N to 70 degrees N, and in North America from 50 degrees N to 70 degrees N, excluding Baffin Island in northeastern Canada and the Aleutian Peninsula in southwestern Alaska. Note that for this product, taiga is being used one and the same as boreal forest.This circumpolar TTE area was classified according to VCF tree canopy cover.

This data set contains data associated with MODIS fire maps generated using two different algorithms and compared against fire maps produced by ASTER. These data relate to a paper (Morisette et al., 2005) that describes the use of high spatial resolution ASTER data to evaluate the characteristics of two fire detection algorithms, both applied to MODIS-Terra data and both operationally producing publicly available fire locations. The two algorithms are NASA's operational Earth Observing System MODIS fire detection product and Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) algorithm. These data are the ASCII files used in the logistic regression and error matrices presented in the paper.

Satellite fire detection was determined from two sensors, the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on NOAA-12 and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on both the Terra and Aqua platforms, for 2001- 2003 to characterize fire activity in Brazil, giving special emphasis to the Amazon region. Active fire data for AVHRR/NOAA-12 was produced using a fixed threshold fire detection technique based on the algorithm developed by the Centro de Previsao do Tempo e Estudos Climaticos (CPTEC/INPE) (Setzer and Pereira, 1991; Setzer et al., 1994; Setzer and Malingreau, 1996). Active fire data for MODIS/Terra and MODIS/Aqua was produced using a contextual fire detection technique based on NASA-University of Maryland algorithm (Justice et al., 2003; Giglio et al.2003).Resulting fire counts were compared for major biomes of Brazil (Figure 1), the nine states of the Legal Amazon (e.g., Tocantins, Figure 2), and two important road corridors in the Amazon region (Figure 3). In evaluating the daily fire counts, there is a dependence on variations in satellite viewing geometry, overpass time, atmospheric conditions, and fire characteristics (Schroeder et al., 2005). The data provided are the coordinates of daily active vegetation fires in Brazil for 2001 through 2003 at 1km resolution for both AVHRR and MODIS sensors. Data are provided in both Arcview (shape file format) and ASCII comma separated file formats. Vector files for the major biomes of Brazil, the nine states of the Legal Amazon, and two important road corridors in the Amazon region are also included.

This data set, LBA-ECO LC-22 Land Cover from MODIS Vegetation Indices, Mato Grosso, Brazil, provides land cover classifications for Mato Grosso, Brazil, for the years 2000-2001 and 2003-2004. The classifications were derived from annual vegetation phenology information from a time series of Collection 4, 16-day MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) vegetation data, at 250-m resolution. A decision tree classifier was trained using field observations and Landsat TM data of land cover from 2003-2004 to identify seven land-cover classes. The classifier was applied to the 2000-2001 and 2003-2004 MODIS ENVI and EVI data. There are two GeoTIFF (.tif) files with this data set.

This data set, ISLSCP II Snow-Free, Spatially Complete, 16 Day Albedo, 2002, contains 9 files for snow-free, spatially complete 16-day global black-sky albedos at local solar noon, white-sky albedos and quality information based on MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Collection 4 Albedo Products (MOD43B3). Data are provided for 7 spectral bands and 3 broad bands for a full year of MODIS data (2002). An ecosystem-dependent temporal interpolation technique was developed to fill any missing or seasonally snow-covered data in the official MOD43B3 albedo product. The resulting data set maintains the original resolution and data of the MOD43B3 product while replacing fill values to provide snow-free spatially complete maps.

This data set was developed to describe the state of the global land cover in terms of 15 major vegetation types, plus water, before alteration by humans. It forms a complement to the historical croplands data set developed by Ramankutty and Foley (1999). By overlaying the two, one can determine the extent to which natural vegetation has been cleared for cultivation. This data set can be used directly within spatially-explicit climate and biogeochemical models. There are four total files in this data set. Two files contain the land cover types representing potential natural vegetation before human alteration, and two other files contain those points in the original data set submitted by the Principal Investigator that have been modified in order to match the land/water mask of the ISLSCP Initiative II.The geographic distribution of contemporary land cover types can be derived from remotely-sensed data. However, humans now dominate much of the world and there is little evidence of the pre-human-settlement natural vegetation or Potential Natural Vegetation (PNV). PNV, as defined here, does not necessarily represent the world's natural pre-human-disturbance vegetation. Rather, our definition of PNV represents the world's vegetation cover that would most likely exist now in equilibrium with present-day climate and natural disturbance, in the absence of human activities.

This data set contains monthly average snow-free surface shortwave albedo calculated for the period 1982-1998 and estimates of background soil/litter reflectances in the visible (0.4-0.7 mm) and near-infrared (NIR) (0.7-1.0 mm) wavelengths. Biophysical Parameters derived from the FASIR-NDVI (Fourier Adjusted, Solar zenith angle correction, Interpolation, and Reconstruction of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) data set developed for the ISLSCP Initiative II data collection for the months of January 1982 through December 1998 were used to calculate monthly mean surface albedos at 1 X 1 degree spatial resolution for vegetated land surfaces (Sellers et al, 1996b) for the wavelength interval from 0.4 to 3.0 mm. The instantaneous albedo is a function of the properties of the land surface and the solar zenith angle. The monthly mean albedo is an average weighted over time weighted by the incident radiation. NDVI data are used to generate the biophysical parameters leaf area index (LAI) and green fraction of vegetation (Greenness) used by the canopy radiative transfer model of the Simple Biosphere (SiB2) model (Sellers et al, 1996a), which computes the instantaneous albedo. This is coupled to the Colorado State University (CSU) General Circulation Model (GCM) (Randall et al, 1989) which integrates the SiB2 radiative transfer through time. The incident radiation for weighting the time-averaged albedo was provided by a previous run of the GCM using the atmospheric radiation parameterization of Harshvardhan et al (1987). The Harshvardhan parameterization models radiative transfer through the atmosphere in both the longwave and shortwave bands, including the effects of cloudiness and water vapor, carbon dioxide and ozone. The shortwave radiation distinguishes between the direct and diffuse components of the solar beam.

The objective of this work was to produce a monthly climatology of broadband surface albedos for use in global numerical weather prediction models at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). Monthly means of clear-sky, surface, broadband, snow-free albedos for overhead sun illumination angle were determined using data from a five-year period from April 1985-December 1987 and January 1989-March 1991. The data set is compatible in temporal coverage and spatial resolution with a monthly climatology of green vegetation fraction (Gutman and Ignatov, 1998) delivered earlier and currently in use at NCEP. Three zip files are provided at three spatial resolutions of quarter, half and on degree, each containing 12 data files in standard ESRI ArcGIS ArcInfo Grid format, and 12 data files in ASCII format denoting defifferences between the original data set and the ISLSCP II Land Sea Mask.

This data set, ISLSCP II MODIS (Collection 4) IGBP Land Cover, 2000-2001, contains global land cover classifications (dominant type, classification confidence and fractional cover) generated using a full year of MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data covering the period from October 2000 to October 2001. The objective of the MODIS Land Cover Product is to provide a suite of land cover types useful to global system science modelers by exploiting the information content of MODIS data in the spectral, temporal, spatial, and directional domains. These products describe the geographic distribution of the 17 land cover classification scheme proposed by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP).

This International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP II) MODerate resolution Image Spectroradiometer (MODIS) dataset, ISLSCP II MODIS (Collection 4) Albedo 2002, provides albedo data for the period January 2002 through December 2002.The MODIS bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) albedo product (MOD43B) provides measures of clear sky surface albedo every 16 days. Both white-sky albedo (bihemispherical reflectance) and black-sky albedo (directional hemispherical reflectance) at local solar noon are provided for 7 spectral bands and 3 broadbands. Since black-sky albedo represents the direct beam contribution while white-sky represents the completely diffuse contribution, these measures can be linearly combined as a function of the fraction of diffuse skylight (itself a function of optical depth) to provide an actual or instantaneous albedo at local solar noon.