View article

Essential climate variables such as LAI or FAPAR are required for the monitoring, understanding and modeling of land surfaces at the global scale. While several products were already developed from the current medium resolution sensors, the few validation exercises currently achieved highlighted significant discrepancies and inconsistencies. The objective of this study is to develop improved global estimates of LAI, FAPAR and FCOVER variables by capitalizing on the development and validation of already existing products. In a first step, the performances of the MODIS, CYCLOPES, GLOBCARBON and JRC-FAPAR products were reviewed. The MODIS and CYCLOPES products were then selected since they provide higher level of consistency. These products were fused to generate the improved LAI, FAPAR and FCOVER values that were later scaled to closely match their expected range of variation. Finally …