Published: Nov. 22, 2016
The seasonal progression of global vegetation is driven by the tilt of the Earth's rotational axis and its annual orbit around the Sun. In turn, global seasonality drives major changes in important environmental factors such as global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. This data visualization illustrates this phenomenon using weekly Enhanced Vegetation Index 2 (EVI2) data, from the NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) Vegetation Index and Phenology (VIP) Version 4 collection. The VIP collection is derived from data collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard the NASA Aqua and Terra satellites, the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), and the Satellite Pour l’Observation de la Terre (SPOT). Data from the VIP collection provide 34 years of consistent, sensor-independent global records for vegetation indices and land surface phenology that can be used to observe the seasonal progression of global vegetation. The data are distributed by NASA’s Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC), located at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center.