Daily MODIS 500 m Reflectance Anisotropy Direct Broadcast (DB) Products for Monitoring Vegetation Phenology Dynamics

Land surface vegetation phenology is an efficient bio-indicator for monitoring ecosystem variation in response to changes in climatic factors. The primary objective of the current article is to examine the utility of the daily MODIS 500 m reflectance anisotropy direct broadcast (DB) product for monitoring the evolution of vegetation phenological trends over selected crop, orchard, and forest regions. Although numerous model-fitted satellite data have been widely used to assess the spatio-temporal distribution of land surface phenological patterns to understand phenological process and phenomena, current efforts to investigate the details of phenological trends, especially for natural phenological variations that occur on short time scales, are less well served by remote sensing challenges and lack of anisotropy correction in satellite data sources. The daily MODIS 500 m reflectance anisotropy product is employed to retrieve daily vegetation indices (VI) of a 1 year period for an almond orchard in California and for a winter wheat field in northeast China, as well as a 2 year period for a deciduous forest region in New Hampshire, USA. Compared with the ground records from these regions, the VI trajectories derived from the cloud-free and atmospherically corrected MODIS Nadir BRDF (bidirectional reflectance distribution function) adjusted reflectance (NBAR) capture not only the detailed footprint and principal attributes of the phenological events (such as flowering and blooming) but also the substantial inter-annual variability. This study demonstrates the utility of the daily 500 m MODIS reflectance anisotropy DB product to provide daily VI for monitoring and detecting changes of the natural vegetation phenology as exemplified by study regions comprising winter wheat, almond trees, and deciduous forest

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

BOREAS RSS-20 POLDER C-130 Measurements of Surface BRDF

This Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study (BOREAS) Remote Sensing Science (RSS)-20 data set contains measurements of surface bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) made by the polarization and Directionality of Earth reflectances (POLDER) instrument over several surface types (pine, spruce, fen) of the BOREAS southern study area (SSA) during the 1994 intensive field campaigns (IFCs). Single-point BRDF values were acquired either from the NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) C-130 aircraft or from a NASA Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) helicopter. A related data set collected from the helicopter platform is available as is POLDER imagery acquired from the C-130. The data are stored in tabular ASCII files. The data files are available on a CD-ROM (see document number 20010000884) or from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC)

BOREAS RSS-20 POLDER Helicopter-Mounted Measurements of Surface BRDF

The BOREAS HYD-9 team collected data on precipitation and strearnflow over portions of the NSA and SSA. This data set contains Cartesian maps of rain accumulation for I -hour and daily periods during the summer of 1994 over the SSA only (not the full view of the radar). A parallel set of 1-hour maps for the whole radar view has been prepared and is available upon request from the HYD-09 personnel. An incidental benefit of the areal selection was the elimination of some of the less accurate data,because for various reasons the radar rain estimates degrade considerably outside a range of about 100 km. The data are available in tabular ASCII files. The data files are available on a CD-ROM (see document number 20010000884) or from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC)

BOREAS RSS-3 Atmospheric Measurements from a Helicopter-Mounted Sunphotometer

The BOREAS RSS-3 team collected and processed helicopter-based measurements of atmospheric conditions to estimates of aerosol optical thickness and atmospheric water vapor. The automatic sun-tracking photometer for helicopters was deployed during all three 1994 IFCs at numerous tower and auxiliary sites in both the NSA and the SSA. Six spectral channels (440, 540, 613, 670, 870, and 1030 nm) were chosen to span the visible and NIR wavelengths and to avoid gaseous absorption. One additional channel, 940 nm, was selected to measure the water column abundance above the helicopter platform. The data are stored in tabular ASCII files

BOREAS RSS-19 1996 CASI At-Sensor Radiance and Reflectance Images

The BOREAS RSS-19 team collected CASI images from the Chieftain Navaho aircraft in order to observe the seasonal change in the radiometric reflectance properties of the boreal forest landscape. CASI was deployed as a site-specific optical sensor as part of BOREAS. The overall objective of the CASI deployment was to observe the seasonal change in the radiometric reflectance properties of the boreal forest landscape. In 1996, image data were collected with CASI on 15 days during a field campaign between 18-July and 01 -August, primarily at flux tower sites located at study sites near Thompson, Manitoba, and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. A variety of CASI data collection strategies were used to meet the following scientific objectives: 1) canopy bidirectional reflectance, 2) canopy biochemistry, 3) spatial variability, and 4) estimates of up and downwelling PAR spectral albedo, as well as changes along transects across lakes at the southern site and transects between the NSA and SSA. The images are stored as binary image files. The data files are available on a CD-ROM (see document number 20010000884) or from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC)

BOREAS RSS-11 Ground Network of Sunphotometer Measurements

The BOREAS RSS-11 team operated a network of five automated (Cimel) and two hand-held (Miami) solar radiometers from 1994 to 1996 during the BOREAS field campaigns. The data provide aerosol optical depth measurements, size distribution, phase function, and column water vapor amounts over points in northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Canada. The data are useful for the correction of remotely sensed aircraft and satellite images. The data are provided in tabular ASCII files

BOREAS RSS-18 Level-1B AVIRIS Imagery: At-Sensor Radiance in BIL Format

These data were collected and processed by the BOREAS RSS-18 team at NASA JPL. Data were acquired for BOREAS with NASA's AVIRIS. This optical sensor measures images that consist of spectra from 400 to 2500 nm at 10-nm sampling. These spectra are acquired as images with 20-meter spatial resolution, 11-km swath width and up to 800-km length. The measurements are spectrally, radiometrically, and geometrically calibrated. Spatially, the data are focused on the BOREAS NSA and SSA near Thompson, Manitoba, and Candle Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada, respectively. AVIRIS data were collected in 1994 during the Thaw campaign at the NSA and SSA, at the SSA in IFC-1, and at the NSA and SSA in both IFC-2 and IFC-3. In 1996, AVIRIS was deployed in the winter and summer campaigns in the SSA only. The data files are available on a CD-ROM (see document number 20010000884) or from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC)