GLOBAL LAND MONITORING FROM AVHRR - POTENTIAL AND LIMITATIONS

Global Vegetation Index (GVI) time series of visible, near-IR and thermal IR Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AYHRR) weekly composite data with a 0.15 degrees spatial resolution collected from NOAA-9 and -11 satellites have been used to develop a prototype global land monitoring system. The system is based on standardized anomalies of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and channel 4 brightness temperature (T-4) for the period April 1985-September 1994. Processing included: post-launch updated calibration; cloud screening; filling in the cloud induced data gaps by monthly averaging and spatial interpolation; suppressing residual noise by smoothing; calculating 5-year monthly means and standard deviations of NDVI and T-4; and their standardized anomalies. The derived anomalies show potential for detecting and interpreting the seasonal cycle and statistically significant interannual variability. Yet, discontinuities and residual trends can be traced in time series of NDVI and T-4. Discontinuities result from the switch from NOAA-9 to NOAA-11 in 1988, and the Mount Pinatubo eruption in 1991. Trends are a combined effect of satellite orbit drift and a possible persistent error in post-launch calibration of solar channels. The orbit drift affects the solar and thermal IR channels through systematic variation of illumination geometry and diurnal heating/cooling of the surface and atmosphere, respectively. Examples are given to illustrate the magnitude of these effects, which reduce the ability to monitor small year-to-year surface changes. The present system yields more accurate results in geographic regions, where atmospheric, angular and diurnal variability effects have a lesser impact on the derived anomalies, i.e. over vegetated areas outside the tropics during local summers. For global-scale monitoring, angular, atmospheric and diurnal variability corrections must be incorporated in the present system.