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Vegetation Data


Monthly Snow-Free Albedo (1982-1998) and Background (Soil/Litter) Visible and Near Infrared Reflectances

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, 1995b) for the wavelength interval from 0.4 to 3.0 µm. 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, 1995a), 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.


Data Provider: Donald A. Dazlich, Sietse O. Los

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Data Files
(ISLSCP II Disc #1)
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Data Set
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File Information

The snowfree albedo files consist of numerical fields of varying length, which are delimited by a single space and arranged in columns and rows. The files in this data set are on a 1 degree by 1 degree grid and contain 360 columns by 180 rows. All values are written as real numbers.
      This data set also includes files that contain estimates of the reflectance of the soil/litter background in both visible and Near-Infrared wavelengths. These files are named bkgrd_refl_vis_1d.asc and bkgrd_refl_nir_1d.asc, respectively

 

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Revision Date: December 14, 2004