Global Land Surface Phenology Metrics at 500m Resolution

500 meter spatial resolution data provides global land surface phenology metrics at yearly intervals. The dataset is derived from MODIS Terra and Aqua satellite NBAR-EVI2 time series, identifying metrics for up to two vegetation cycles per year. It is produced by the LPCLOUD organization using MODIS MCD12Q2 Version 6.1.

Use Cases

• Modeling the onset of greenness and dormancy dates to track growing season shifts under climate change.
• Analyzing the relationship between EVI2 amplitude and peak greenness to assess vegetation productivity.
• Mapping global patterns of vegetation cycles using the greenup midpoint and senescence layers.
• Validating phenology models by comparing predicted maturity dates with the provided maturity metric.
• Studying intra-annual vegetation dynamics using the integrated EVI2 over a vegetation cycle layer.

Strengths

• Global spatial coverage at a consistent 500 meter resolution.
• Provides up to two detected vegetation cycles per year for detailed intra-annual analysis.
• Data gaps are filled using good quality values from adjacent years to improve continuity.

Limitations

• Spatial resolution of 500m may be too coarse for studying fine-scale ecological processes.
• Phenology metrics are limited to a maximum of two cycles per year, which may not capture complex multi-cycle regions.
• Relies on NBAR-EVI2 time series, which can be affected by persistent cloud cover despite gap-filling.

Provenance

Source

MODIS instruments aboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites.

Collection Method

Derived from time series of the 2-band Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI2) calculated from MODIS Nadir BRDF-Adjusted Reflectance (NBAR).

Time Range

Yearly intervals. Specific start and end years are not provided in the input.

Freshness

Yearly intervals. Version 6.1 indicates a specific data processing version.

Geography

Global land surface.