The ORNL DAAC announces the release of five data sets associated with the International Satellite Land-Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP).
ISLSCP II AVHRR ALBEDO AND BRDF, 1995 . Data set prepared by A. Strahler, C.L.B. Schaaf and E. Tsvetsinskaya. This albedo and BRDF (Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function) data set consists of 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).
ISLSCP II C4 VEGETATION PERCENTAGE . Data set prepared by C.J. Still, J.A. Berry, G.J. Collatz, and R.S. DeFries. This data set provides the percentage of vegetation (0-100) in each 1 degree grid cell which possesses the C4 photosynthetic pathway. 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.
ISLSCP II CONTINUOUS FIELDS OF VEGETATION COVER, 1992-1993 . Data set prepared by R. DeFries and M.C. Hansen. This data set describes the geographic distributions of three fundamental vegetation characteristics: tree, herbaceous, and bare ground cover that were derived as continuous fields of vegetation cover from multi-temporal Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data using all available bands and derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The continuous fields describe sub-pixel proportions of vegetation cover. For tree cover, additional fields describing leaf longevity (evergreen and deciduous) and leaf morphology (broadleaf and needleleaf) were also generated. This data set consists of coverages for seven land cover classes.
ISLSCP II ECOSYSTEM ROOTING DEPTHS. . Data set prepared by H.J. Schenk and R.B. Jackson. This data set describes the predicted distribution of plant rooting depths derived from global aboveground vegetation structure and climate data. The mean 50% and 95% root ecosystem rooting depths are reported for one degree by one degree grid cells.
ISLSCP II IGBP DISCOVER AND SIB LAND COVER, 1992-1993 . Data set prepared by T. Loveland, J. Brown, D. Ohlen, B. Reed, Z. Zhu, L. Yang, and S. Howard. This data set provides the geographic distributions of the 17 classes of land cover based on the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program Data and Information System's (IGBP-DIS) DISCover land cover and the 15 classes of the Simple Biosphere (SiB) model. The land cover maps were derived from 1 kilometer AVHRR data using a full year of data (April 1992 - March 1993).
International Satellite Land-Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP)The ISLSCP Initiative II data collection is designed to support modeling studies of the global carbon, water and energy cycle. This data collection contains 50 global time series spanning the ten-year period 1986 to 1995 compiled under the guidance of Forrest Hall and colleagues at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The data for Initiative II were acquired from a number of U.S. and international agencies, universities, and institutions, then co-registered to equal-angle grids of one degree, one-half and one-quarter degree resolution and reformatted into a common ASCII format.
The collection includes a variety of remotely sensed data sets ranging from visible to microwave wavelengths. The data sets also include improved topography, surface radiation, near-surface meteorology, precipitation, runoff, soils, and vegetation data sets that can be used in a variety of interdisciplinary research activities. Several data sets to support global carbon and biogeochemical studies are also provided.
The ORNL DAAC is a NASA-funded data center archiving and distributing terrestrial ecology and biogeochemical dynamics data.