A global Canopy Water Content product from AVHRR/Metop

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new global canopy water content dataset derived from AVHRR/Metop satellite data, enabling improved vegetation water status monitoring at regional and global scales.

Contribution

It presents an innovative algorithm for generating a global CWC product from AVHRR/Metop data, filling a gap in operational vegetation water content monitoring.

Findings

The CWC product closely matches ground data from SMAPVEX16.

The product is consistent with existing SL2P data.

It is applicable across various spatial and temporal resolutions.

Abstract

Spatially and temporally explicit canopy water content (CWC) data are important for monitoring vegetation status, and constitute essential information for studying ecosystem-climate interactions. Despite many efforts there is currently no operational CWC product available to users. In the context of the Satellite Application Facility for Land Surface Analysis (LSA-SAF), we have developed an algorithm to produce a global dataset of CWC based on data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) sensor on board Meteorological Operational (MetOp) satellites forming the EUMETSAT Polar System (EPS). CWC reflects the water conditions at the leaf level and information related to canopy structure. An accuracy assessment of the EPS/AVHRR CWC indicated a close agreement with multi-temporal ground data from SMAPVEX16 in Canada and Dahra in Senegal. The present study further evaluates the consistency of the LSA-SAF product with respect to the Simplified Level 2 Product Prototype Processor (SL2P) product, and demonstrates its applicability at different spatio-temporal resolutions using optical data from MSI/Sentinel-2 and MODIS/Terra and Aqua. We conclude that the EPS/AVHRR CWC product is a promising tool for monitoring vegetation water status at regional and global scales.