ABoVE: Lake Growing Season Green Surface Reflectance Trends, AK and Canada, 1984-2019

This dataset provides an annual time series of Landsat green surface reflectance and the derived annual trend during the growing season (June and July) for 472,890 lakes across the ABoVE Extended Study Domain from 1984 to 2019. The reflectance data are from Landsat-5, Landsat-7, and Landsat-8 sensors for the green band (center wavelength 560 nm). Over 270,000 Landsat scenes were evaluated and quality assured to be cloud-free and over water. Lakes were selected from HydroLAKES, a global database of lakes of at least 10 ha. Lake surface reflectance was extracted from a 3-by-3-pixel area centered on each lake centroid from the selected Landsat scenes determined from lake polygons. This dataset demonstrates changes in lake color over time in the arctic and boreal regions of North America. Color is relevant for understanding physical, ecological, and biogeochemical processes in some of the world’s highest concentrations of lakes where climate change may have significant impacts.