Produced by: Joint Research Centre
The Joint Research Centre (JRC) are currently producing a new Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR) product which ingests Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data. The estimation of a state variable from the signals measured by a given sensor is constructed from sensor-specific simulated data sets, representative of various land surfaces, using radiative transfer models of the coupled surface atmosphere system. This approach defines a large number of simulated radiance fields, which can be sampled by a virtual instrument similar to the actual one in terms of the spectral and angular observing schemes. Similarly, the corresponding FAPAR values for the various terrestrial systems under investigation can be simultaneously estimated. The simulations of FAPAR values have been made by assuming that the spectral properties of leaves and soil correspond to the Photosynthesis Active Radiation (PAR) region which is between 400 nm and 700 nm. In this case, simulations are made with a homogeneous canopy model (Gobron et al. 1997) representing land surfaces.
Within QA4ECV, JRC develops specific algorithms for using AVHRR surfaces data from LTDR (https://ltdr.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ltdr/ltdrPage.cgi)Documents Data Access Traceability Chain