GIMMS Global Monthly NDVI Satellite Record 1981-2002

Global monthly Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data provides a 22-year satellite record of terrestrial vegetation changes from July 1981 to December 2002. The dataset from the Global Inventory Modelling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) is processed to reduce variations from calibration, view geometry, volcanic aerosols, and orbital drift. It was generated for the International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) Initiative II collection to support climate and biogeochemical modeling.

Use Cases

• Tracking monthly vegetation changes globally using NDVI values from 1981-2002.
• Inputting corrected NDVI data into climate models to calculate land-surface evapotranspiration.
• Providing biophysical parameters for the ISLSCP Initiative II collection to study CO2 exchange.
• Analyzing long-term vegetation trends with data corrected for volcanic aerosols and orbital drift effects.

Strengths

• Covers a 22-year period from July 1981 to December 2002, offering a long temporal baseline.
• Includes corrections for calibration, view geometry, volcanic aerosols (1982-1984, 1991-1994), and orbital drift to isolate true vegetation signal.
• Available at three spatial resolutions (0.25, 0.5, and 1.0 degree) for flexibility in analysis.

Limitations

• Specific column names and row counts are not provided by any source platform.
• Conflicting last updated dates exist: one source lists 2002-12-31, while others list 2026-03-13, suggesting possible metadata inconsistencies.

Provenance

Source

Global Inventory Modelling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS), part of the ISLSCP Initiative II collection.

Collection Method

Generated from satellite data (NOAA series) with empirical mode decomposition/reconstruction (EMD) processing.

Time Range

1981-07 to 2002-12

Freshness

2026-03-13 01:33:25.427046

Geography

Global