AVHRR Ltdr Surface Albedo Product for Agricultural Modeling

The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensors aboard the different NOAA satellites provide a unique global remote sensing dataset that ranges from the 1980s to the present. The NASA funded Long Term Data Record (LTDR) project aims to develop a quality and consistent Climate Data Record (CDR) of AVHRR data with the use of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) instrument as a reference. This product provides daily surface reflectance data ranging from 1981-2019. However, there is currently no available LTDR surface albedo product, a key variable in the agricultural modeling. Current surface albedo products either have a non-daily temporal resolution, have a very coarse spatial resolution (25km), or do not cover such a long time span. We aim to produce a consistent daily narrowband and broadband white sky and black sky albedo product from 1981-2019, which serves as a valuable input for yield models attempting to include climatic anomalies, and a high temporal resolution that allows monitoring rapid changes in the vegetation phenology. We do this by first, removing spectral differences among the different NOAA satellites, second, optimizing the current product’s BRDF correction for AVHRR data, third improving the cloud mask to allow high quality daily observations and finally, by integrating the BRDF shape of the non-cloudy pixels.