MODIS Collection 6 global yearly Forest and Vegetation Cover Fraction

Abstract: NetCDF files of the forest cover fraction, vegetation cover fraction and fraction of non-vegetated area on 250m grid resolution sinusoidal grid generated at ICDC from the original HDF files obtained from https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/mod44bv006/ are used to compute globally gridded maps of these parameters at 0.5 degree grid resolution on an equi-rectangular climate modeling grid (CMG). The global maps contain the grid-cell mean fractions of the three mentioned parameters, their variance within the grid cells, and - for the forest cover fraction - the grid-cell mean standard deviation. In addition, the data set includes maps of the number of valid forest cover fraction values at 250 m resolution per 0.5 degree grid cell, a grid cell mean quality flag and fractions of the two most abundant quality flags (primary and secondary). Generally all valid data are used; the user is advised to check the quality flags to eventually discard data of low quality.

TableOfContents: grid cell mean forest cover fraction; grid cell mean forest cover fraction standard deviation; forest cover fraction variance within grid cell; grid cell mean vegetation cover fraction; vegetation cover fraction variance within grid cell; non-vegetated area cover fraction; non-vegetated area cover fraction variance within grid cell; number of useful vegetation cover fraction values per grid cell; grid cell mean quality flag; primary quality flag fraction; secondary quality flag fraction

Technical Info: dimension: 720 columns x 360 rows x unlimited; temporalExtent_startDate: 2000-03-05; temporalExtent_endDate: 2020-03-04; temporalResolution: yearly; spatialResolution: 0.5; spatialResolutionUnit: degrees; horizontalResolutionXdirection: 0.5; horizontalResolutionXdirectionUnit: degrees; horizontalResolutionYdirection: 0.5; horizontalResolutionYdirectionUnit: degrees; verticalResolution: none; verticalResolutionUnit: none; verticalStart: none; verticalEnd: none; instrumentName: MODerate Resolution Spectroradiometer (MODIS); instrumentType: visible_to_infrared_spectroradiometer; instrumentLocation: Earth Observation Satellite (EOS) Terra; instrumentProvider: NOAA/NASA

Methods: [1] https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/products/mod44bv006/; [2] Townshend, J., et al., User Guide for the MODIS Vegetation Continuous Fields product Collection 6, verison 1, https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/documents/112/MOD44B_User_Guide_V6.pdf; [3] Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD), https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/documents/113/MOD44B_ATBD.pdf; [4] Carroll, M., et al., 2011. Vegetative Cover Conversion and Vegetation Continuous Fields. In: Ramachandran, B., C. O. Justice, and M. Abrams (eds.), Land Remote Sensing and Global Environment Change: NASA's Earth Observing System and the Science of ASTER and MODIS. Springer Verlag.; [5] Hansen, M., et al., 2005. Estimation of tree cover using MODIS data at global, continental and regional/local scales. Int. J. Rem. Sens., 26(19), 4359-4380.

Units: Units for all variables (see TableOfContents): percent; percent; 1; percent; 1; percent; 1; 1; 1; 1; 1

geoLocations: westBoundLongitude: -180.0 degrees East; eastBoundLongitude: 180.0 degrees East; southBoundLatitude: -90.0 degrees North; northBoundLatitude: 90.0 degrees North; geoLocationPlace: global on land

Size: 1 file per year, 2001-2018: 5197276 bytes, 2019: 5197696 bytes; all packed into one zip-archive

Format: netCDF

DataSources:

Original data on sinusoidal grid tiles in hdf-format: https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD44B.006 (last accessed 2020-12-14), see also https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/products/mod44bv006/ (last accessed: 2020-12-14)

Reprocessed data on sinusoidal grid tiles in netCDF format: https://icdc.cen.uni-hamburg.de/en/modis-vcf-forest.html (last accessed 2021-01-20)

Contact: stefan.kern (at) uni-hamburg.de

Web page: https://icdc.cen.uni-hamburg.de/en/modis-vcf-forest.html