Satellite remote sensing of vegetation at regional to global scales is undertaken at considerable variations in solar zenith angle (SZA) across space and time, yet the extent to which these SZA variations matter for the retrieval of phenology remains largely unknown. Here we examined the effect of seasonal and spatial variations in SZA on retrieving vegetation phenology from time series of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) across a study area in southeastern Australia encompassing forest, woodland, and grassland sites. The vegetation indices (VI) data span two years and are from the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI), which is onboard the Japanese Himawari-8 geostationary satellite. The semi-empirical RossThick-LiSparse-Reciprocal (RTLSR) bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) model was inverted for each spectral band on a daily basis using 10-minute reflectances acquired by H-8 AHI at different sun-view geometries for each site. The inverted RTLSR model was then used to forward calculate surface reflectance at three constant SZAs (20°, 40°, 60°) and one seasonally varying SZA (local solar noon), all normalised to nadir view. Time series of NDVI and EVI adjusted to different SZAs at nadir view were then computed, from which phenological metrics such as start and end of growing season were retrieved. Results showed that NDVI sensitivity to SZA was on average nearly five times greater than EVI sensitivity. VI sensitivity to SZA also varied among sites (biome types) and phenological stages, with NDVI sensitivity being higher during the minimum greenness period than during the peak greenness period. Seasonal SZA variations altered the temporal profiles of both NDVI and EVI, with more pronounced differences in magnitude among NDVI time series normalised to different SZAs. When using VI time series that allowed SZA to vary at local solar noon, the uncertainties in estimating start, peak, end, and length of growing season introduced by local solar noon varying SZA VI time series, were 7.5, 3.7, 6.5, and 11.3 days for NDVI, and 10.4, 11.9, 6.5, and 8.4 days for EVI respectively, compared to VI time series normalised to a constant SZA. Furthermore, the stronger SZA dependency of NDVI compared with EVI, resulted in up to two times higher uncertainty in estimating annual integrated VI, a commonly used remote-sensing proxy for vegetation productivity. Since commonly used satellite products are not generally normalised to a constant sun-angle across space and time, future studies to assess the sun-angle effects on satellite applications in agriculture, ecology, environment, and carbon science are urgently needed. Measurements taken by new-generation geostationary (GEO) satellites offer an important opportunity to refine this assessment at finer temporal scales. In addition, studies are needed to evaluate the suitability of different BRDF models for normalising sun-angle across a broad spectrum of vegetation structure, phenological stages and geographic locations. Only through continuous investigations on how sun-angle variations affect spatiotemporal vegetation dynamics and what is the best strategy to deal with it, can we achieve a more quantitative remote sensing of true signals of vegetation change across the entire globe and through time.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Leaf Area Index (LAI) product is critical for global terrestrial carbon monitoring and ecosystem modeling. However, MODIS LAI is calculated on a pixel-by-pixel and day-by-day basis without using spatial or temporal correlation information, which leads to its high sensitivity of LAI to uncertainties in observed reflectance resulting in an increased noise level in time series. While exploiting prior knowledge is a common practice to fill gaps in observations, little research has been conducted on reducing noisy fluctuations and improving the overall quality of the MODIS LAI product. To address this issue, we proposed a Spatio-Temporal Information Composition Algorithm (STICA), which directly introduces prior Spatio-temporal correlation and Multiple Quality Assessment (MQA) information into the existing MODIS LAI product. STICA reduces the noise level and improves the quality of the product while maintaining the original physically-based (Radiative Transfer Model, RTM) LAI production process. In our analysis, the R2 increased from 0.79 to 0.81, and the RMSE decreased from 0.81 to 0.68 compared to the ground-based LAI reference. The improvement was more pronounced with the degradation of the data quality. STICA reduced noisy fluctuations in the LAI time series to varying degrees among eight biome types. In the Amazon Forest, STICA significantly improved the time-series stability of LAI. Moreover, STICA can effectively eliminate abnormal declines in time series and correct for extreme outliers in LAI. We expect that the MODIS LAI Reanalyzed product generated by this method will better support the application of high-quality LAI datasets.

We evaluated the performance of three global evapotranspiration (ET) models at local, regional, and global scales using the multiple sets of leaf area index (LAI) and meteorological data from 1982 to 2017 and investigated the uncertainty in ET simulations from the model structure and forcing data. The three ET models were the Simple Terrestrial Hydrosphere model (SiTH) developed by our team, the Priestley–Taylor Jet Propulsion Laboratory model (PT-JPL), and the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) ET algorithm (MOD16). Comparing the observed with simulated monthly ET by the three models over 43 Fluxnet sites, we found that SiTH overestimated ET for forests with mean slope from 1.25 to 1.67, but it performed better than the other two models over short vegetation. MOD16 and PT-JPL models simulated well for forests but poorly in dryland biomes (slope = 0.25~0.55; R² = 0.02~0.46). At the catchment scale, all models performed well, except for some tropical and high latitudinal catchments, with NSE values lower than 0 and RMSE and MAE values far beyond their mean values. At the global scale, SiTH highly overestimated ET in tropics, while PT-JPL slightly underestimated ET between 30°N and 60°N and MOD16 underestimated ET between 15°S and 30°S. Generally, the PT-JPL provided the better performance than SiTH and MOD16 models. This study also revealed that the estimated ET by SiTH and especially PT-JPL model were influenced by the uncertainty in meteorological data, and the estimated ET was performed better using MERRA-2 datasets for PT-JPL and using ERA5 datasets for SiTH. While the estimated ET by MOD16 were relatively sensitive to LAI data. In addition, our results suggested that the GLOBMAP and GIMMS datasets were more suitable for long-term ET simulations than the GLASS dataset.

Cultivated pastures have rapidly developed across the Tibetan Plateau over the past several decades, raising concerns about grassland degradation. Accordingly, considerable attention is paid to the protection of Tibetan grassland ecosystems. However, high-resolution spatial distribution of cultivated pastures on the Tibetan Plateau remains poorly understood, primarily due to the difficulty in discriminating cultivated pastures from other land cover types using remote sensing techniques. The absence of such information hinders efficient agricultural and livestock husbandry management, making it challenging to support ecological protection and restoration efforts. Here, we mapped the cultivated pastures on the Tibetan Plateau at a 30 m resolution for the years 1988 to 2021 using Landsat data from the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud computing platform. We built a random forest (RF) binary classification model with inputs of the spectral–temporal metrics of Landsat data acquired in the growing season, as well as ancillary topographic data. The model was trained using carefully selected training samples and was validated against 2000 independent random reference points in two pilot study regions with different climates and landscapes. The model achieved an overall accuracy of 97.05 % ± 0.4 % and an F₁ spatial consistency score of 82.51 % ± 14.22 % (precision: 90.04 % ± 6.18 %; recall: 76.74 % ± 9.91 %), suggesting high confidence in mapping the distribution of cultivated pastures on the plateau. Using the RF model, we then produced a dataset of cultivated-pasture maps for the years from 1988 to 2021 for Qinghai Province and the Tibet Autonomous Region on the Tibetan Plateau, covering 77 % of the plateau. At both the province and county levels, the cultivated-pasture areas estimated in this study matched well with government statistics for recent years. The area of cultivated pastures on the Tibetan Plateau experienced a significant expansion from 0.46 Mha in 1988 to 1.57 Mha in 2021, with an average annual growth of 33.5±2.5 Kha. To our knowledge, we are the first to map cultivated pastures on the Tibetan Plateau, and our RF binary classification approach holds promise in identifying cultivated pastures in other regions of the world, which could prove to be invaluable for scientists, policymakers, ecological conservation practitioners, and herdspeople. The dataset is available on Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14271782 (Han et al., 2024).

The interannual variability (IAV) of global vegetation greenness needs careful assessment as it relates to the stability of the climate, conservation of biodiversity, sustainable ecosystem services, and global food security. Here, we investigated the spatial feature and temporal evolvement of global vegetation greenness interannual variability from 1982 to 2015 using the Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index third generation (NDVI3g) data. Generally, regions with herbaceous and short woody plants had larger IAV of vegetation greenness than those with tall woody biome types (7.9% versus 2.9%). On average, all the biomes displayed increasing IAV of vegetation greenness from 1982 to 2015, with notable increases over northern high latitudes (0.135%/year), Eastern Europe (0.037%//year), and Central Australia (0.231%/year). Croplands in China and India experienced decreasing IAV of vegetation greenness (–0.037%/year for China and –0.004%/year for India). The changing IAV of vegetation greenness had implications for climatic, environmental, and anthropogenic changes that influence vegetation dynamics. Some note-worthy factors include climate warming, the CO₂ fertilization effect, agricultural practice improvement, cropland abandonment, and China’s Grain-for-Green Program.