https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2018.28">
 

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Vegetation phenology controls the seasonality of many ecosystem processes, as well as numerous biosphere-atmosphere feedbacks. Phenology is also highly sensitive to climate change and variability. Here we present a series of datasets, together consisting of almost 750 years of observations, characterizing vegetation phenology in diverse ecosystems across North America. Our data are derived from conventional, visible-wavelength, automated digital camera imagery collected through the PhenoCam network. For each archived image, we extracted RGB (red, green, blue) colour channel information, with means and other statistics calculated across a region-of-interest (ROI) delineating a specific vegetation type. From the high-frequency (typically, 30 min) imagery, we derived time series characterizing vegetation colour, including “canopy greenness”, processed to 1- and 3-day intervals. For ecosystems with one or more annual cycles of vegetation activity, we provide estimates, with uncertainties, for the start of the “greenness rising” and end of the “greenness falling” stages. The database can be used for phenological model validation and development, evaluation of satellite remote sensing data products, benchmarking earth system models, and studies of climate change impacts on terrestrial ecosystems.

Department

Earth Systems Research Center

Publication Date

3-13-2018

Journal Title

Scientific Data

Publisher

Springer Nature

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2018.28

Document Type

Article

Comments

This is an article published by Springer Nature in Scientific Data in 2018, available online: https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2018.28

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