Building Land Cover Characteristics from VIIRS, MODIS and AVHRR and their transition to operation

The increasing use of satellite data by policy and decision makers throughout federal, state, and local emergency management government for prediction and monitoring weather disasters, especially drought, understanding climate and land cover changes, and monitoring natural resources triggered the demands for accelerating the transition of research results into operations. NOAA/NESDIS has developed the 30-year land cover and climate products (LCCP) from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR). In order to obtain these products satellite data were processed comprehensively and proved to be useful to make important economic decisions. The new generation of operational satellites and sensors, Visible/Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard the National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite (NPP), will provide much better options for continuously monitoring of the environmental parameters and products. This presentation will provide the information how these products will be improved combining 30 years of AVHRR data, 10 years of MODIS data and one year of VIIRS data for better monitoring of droughts, climate trends, land cover change and anthropogenic activities.