GOES-R ABI will be the first GOES imaging instrument providing observations in both the visible and the near infrared spectral bands. Therefore it can be used to generate vegetation index for monitoring the state of vegetation cover as well as for identifying vegetation stress and drought. In addition to the improved spectral capability, the advantage of GOES-R ABI consists of enhanced spatial (2 km) and temporal (every 5 min.) resolutions.

This presentation demonstrates progress in the work on generating NDVI and evaluating compositing algorithms for GOES-R. Meteosat 8 SEVIRI data are used as proxy for GOES-R ABI. A set of remapped and reprojected MSG SEVIRI half-hourly images covering Europe and Africa has been analyzed since June 2006. Collection of a set of SEVIRI full-disk images started in late February 2007. Both of these datasets are used to test NDVI algorithms and assess their accuracy.

Examples of NDVI products derived from MSG SEVIRI data are presented. Diurnal variations of the derived NDVI caused by angular anisotropy of the land surface reflectance in the visible and in the near-infrared are evaluated for different land cover types and for different seasons. Seasonal changes of daily and weekly NDVI composite values over different locations with different vegetation types are also examined. NDVI retrievals from MSG SEVIRI are further compared with data from NOAA AVHRR, demonstrating the advantage of using multiple observations per day available with geostationary satellites.