New 25-year 4 km AVHRR data for risk analysis assessment and climate studies

In order to understand, monitor and predict changes to our planet a comprehensive, integrated Earth observation system is required. Advances in remote sensing of the past ten years, contributed to the development of such system and numerous applications, which helped to make decisions for monitoring and predicting sustainable socioeconomic activities. This paper discusses application of a satellite-based comprehensive drought observing sub-system for risk analysis in ecosystems, agriculture, human health, weather impacts, and forestry. The system is based on observations of the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) flown on NOAA operational polar-orbiting satellites. It consists of the 1981-present weekly data sets 4 km and 16 km spatial resolution. Both data include raw and calibrated radiances in the visible, near infrared and infrared spectral bands, processed (without high frequency noise) radiances, vegetation and temperature indices, 25-year climatology, vegetation conditions and products, such as vegetation health, drought, vegetation fraction etc. In the past ten years, users around the world applied these data (http://orbit net.nesdis.noaa.gov/smcd/emb/vci/)for early drought detection and monitoring its development and impacts on the environment and socioeconomic activities, for assessment of biomass/crop productivity, fire risk, monitoring mosquito-born epidemics, amount of water required for irrigation, and predicting ENSO impacts on productivity of land ecosystems. These applications were used in agriculture, forestry, weather models and climate studies. Some examples will be presented along with explanation of data structure and use.