The photosynthetic composition (C3 or C4) of vegetation on the land surface is essential for accurate simulations of biosphere-atmosphere exchanges of carbon, water, and energy. C3 and C4 plants have different responses to light, temperature, CO2, and nitrogen; they also differ in physiological functions like stomatal conductance and isotope fractionation. A fine-scale distribution of these plant types is essential for earth science modeling.The C4 percentage is determined from data sets that describe the continuous distribution of plant growth forms (i.e., the percent of a grid cell covered by herbaceous or woody vegetation), climate classifications, the fraction of a grid cell covered in croplands, and national crop type harvest area statistics. The staff from the International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) Initiative II have made the original data set consistent with the ISLSCP-2 land/water mask. This data set contains a single file in ArcInfo ASCIIGRID format.This data set is one of the products of the International Satellite Land-Surface Climatology Project, Initiative II (ISLSCP II) data collection which contains 50 global time series data sets for the ten-year period 1986 to 1995. Selected data sets span even longer periods. ISLSCP II is a consistent collection of data sets that were compiled from existing data sources and algorithms, and were designed to satisfy the needs of modelers and investigators of the global carbon, water and energy cycle. The data were acquired from a number of U.S. and international agencies, universities, and institutions. The global data sets were mapped at consistent spatial (1, 0.5 and 0.25 degrees) and temporal (monthly, with meteorological data at finer (e.g., 3-hour)) resolutions and reformatted into a common ASCII format. The data and documentation have undergone two peer reviews.ISLSCP is one of several projects of Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) [http://www.gewex.org/] and has the lead role in addressing land-atmosphere interactions -- process modeling, data retrieval algorithms, field experiment design and execution, and the development of global data sets.

This Albedo and BRDF (Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function) data set contains three files containing BRDF parameters, white- sky albedo and black-sky albedo at solar noon for three bands ((350-680nm, 680-3000nm, and 350-30000nm)derived from AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer). These data are available at spatial resolutions of quarter, half, and one degree. Black-sky albedo (direct beam contribution) and white-sky (Completely diffuse contribution) 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.

This data set provides active fire locations and estimates of annual fire frequencies for South America from 2000-2007. Data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors aboard the Terra (2000-2007) and Aqua (2003-2007) satellite platforms were analyzed to determine spatial and temporal patterns in satellite fire detections. The analysis considered a high-confidence subset of all MODIS fire detections to reduce the influence of false fire detections over small forest clearings in Amazonia (Schroeder et al., 2008). The number of unique days on which the active fire detections were recorded within a 1 km radius was estimated from the subset of active fire detections and the ArcGIS neighborhood variety algorithm. There are 14 data files with this data set: 7 GeoTIFF (.tif) files of fire frequency at MODIS 250 m resolution, where each grid cell value represents the number of days in that year on which active fires were detected, and 7 shape files of active fire locations for the years 2001-2007.

This data set contains modeled estimates of carbon flux, biomass, and annual burning emissions across the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso from 2000-2006. The model, DEforestation CArbon Flux (DECAF), was used to provide annual carbon fluxes from large deforestation events (>25 ha) based on post-deforestation land use, and the frequency and duration of active fires during the deforestation process. Carbon fluxes associated with the conversion of Cerrado to mechanized crop production, fires in Cerrado, and managed pasture cover types were also estimated. Model data outputs provided include: * Estimated aboveground live biomass from DECAF in 2000 and 2004.* Annual biomass burning emissions estimates for 2001-2005 from low, middle, and high emissions scenarios with DECAF. There are 15 GeoTIFF files for annual emissions which represent the carbon emissions per pixel in grams of carbon per m2 (g C m-2). Model data inputs provided include: * Annual burn trajectories for 2001 - 2005, including deforestation, Cerrado land cover conversion, and fires in pasture and Cerrado ecosystems unrelated to agricultural expansion. These data were assembled from three sources: MODIS 500-m burned area maps, annual deforestation based on data from the INPE PRODES program, and the conversion of Cerrado savannah/woodland to cropland estimated from land cover information from MODIS phenology metrics.* Annual land cover data 2001-2004 for the portion of Mato Grosso covered by MODIS phenology metrics, tile h12v10, updated based on annual land cover changes in Amazon forest and Cerrado cover types.* Monthly Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) for MODIS tile h12v10 from 10/2000 - 09/2006, based on cloud and gap-filled 16-day NDVI data from MODIS Collection 4 16-day NDVI composites MOD13 product (Huete et al., 2002).There are six compressed (*.gz) files with this data set.

This data set contains proportional estimates for the vegetative cover types of tree cover, herbaceous vegetation, and bare ground over South America for the period 2000-2001. These products were derived from all seven bands of the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor onboard NASA's Terra satellite. A set of 500-m MOD09A1 Surface Reflectance 8-day minimum blue reflectance composites were used as input data. To reduce the presence of cloud shadows, The data were converted to 40-day composites using a second darkest albedo (sum of blue, green, and red bands), and the Vegetation Continuous Fields (VCF) algorithmn was utilized (Hansen et al., 2002). The VCF shows how much of a land cover such as forest or grassland exists anywhere on the land surface. The VCF product may depict areas of heterogeneous land cover better than traditional discrete classification schemes which shows where land cover types are concentrated. There are three images provided in GeoTIFF format.

This data set provides (1) areal estimates of deforestation events (>25 ha) that were identified from 2001-2004 in Mato Grosso by the Brazilian Institute for Space Research (INPE) as part of the Program for the Estimation of Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon (PRODES) and (2) the classification of the post-deforestation land use as either cropland, cattle pasture, or not in production (deforested areas that were never fully cleared or returned immediately to secondary forest) in the years after the large deforestation events from 2002-2005. Data are provided in ESRI shapefile format. There are five compressed (*.zip) data files with this data set. Each shapefile represents one year of post-deforestation land use. Land use in the years following deforestation was estimated using annual time series of MODIS NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index) and EVI (enhanced vegetation index). Metrics of vegetation phenology derived annual time series of MODIS NDVI and EVI data were analyzed using a decision-tree classifier to characterize the major cover type in each area of new deforestation. Post-deforestation land use for each large deforestation event was classified based on the classification of MODIS phenology metrics for all years following deforestation during 2002-2005.

This data set contains field observations, corresponding GPS points, and point and polygons of deforested areas in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, for the period March 17-24,2005. Fieldwork was conducted in the regions surrounding Sinop, Mato Grosso, with specific emphasis on large clearings occurring in the Xingu Basin. The field campaign was designed to validate preliminary MODIS deforestation products designed to detect deforestation during the wet season. There are five data files with this data set: four shapefiles (.shp) and one comma-separated file (.csv).

This data set provides annual spatial patterns of cropland, natural pasture, and planted pasture land uses across Amazonia for the period 1940/1950-1995. Two series of 5-minute grid cell historical maps were generated starting from land use classification products for 1995. Annual data are the fraction of natural pasture, planted pasture, and cropland in each 5-min grid cell. The annual maps are provided in two NetCDF (.nc) format file at 5-minute resolution. The AMZ-C.nc file covers the Brazilian portion of Amazon and Tocantins Rivers basins, and is based on the 1995 land use classification of Cardille et al. (2002), generated through the fusion of remote sensing (AVHRR) and agricultural census data. The second file, AMZ-R.nc, covers the entire Legal Amazon region and adjacent areas and is based on the 1995 land use classification by Ramankutty et al. (2008). The land use classification was generated by the fusion of satellite imagery (MODIS and VEGETATION-SPOT) and data from the agricultural census. A historical land-use reconstruction algorithm was used to generate the annual spatial patterns (based on work from Ramunkutty and Foley, 1999).

This data set contains ASTER sensor Level-1B satellite imagery over controlled burns in the State of Roraima in Northern Brazil on January 19 and 28, 2003, plus simultaneously collected soil and near-surface air temperature profiles on January 28th. The ASTER imagery is provided in 14 zipped files containing HDF-EOS files (*.hdf and *.met file pairs), while the sample-based temperature profiles, one for the air the other for the ground, are provided as comma separated ASCII files.

This data set contains proportional estimates for the vegetative cover types of woody vegetation, herbaceous vegetation, and bare ground over the Amazon Basin for the period 2000-2001. These products were derived from all seven bands of the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor onboard NASA's Terra satellite. A set of MODIS 32-day composites were used to create the vegetation cover types using the Vegetation Continuous Fields (VCF) (Hansen et al., 2002) approach which shows how much of a land cover such as "forest" or "grassland" exists anywhere on the land surface. The VCF product may depict areas of heterogeneous land cover better than traditional discrete classification schemes which shows where land cover types are concentrated.The original MODIS products are 500-m spatial resolution and are derived from 2000-2001 data products. The data were resampled to 1-km resolution for the regional study under this project, and provided as 3 separate cover type files in ENVI and GeoTIFF file formats that are provided in six zipped files. These products are registered to the rest of the regional data sets over the Amazon basin. These data are also available for download from the Global Land Cover Facility Website (http://modis.umiacs.umd.edu/).