Evaluation of GLI reflectance and vegetation indices with MODIS products

Vegetation over land plays an important role to the carbon cycle, which influences global warming. It is necessary to measure vegetation amount accurately on global scale to understand the carbon cycle mechanism. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA; former NASDA) has successfully launched a new Advanced Earth Orbiting Satellite (ADEOS-II) aboard an H-2A booster on December 14, 2002. The ADEOS-II satellite is focused on monitoring of global climate change on the Earth. Unfortunately, the operation of ADEOS-II satellite has stopped on October 24 of 2003, but very important VNIR/SWIR/MTIR data have been obtained in northern hemisphere for vegetation dynamics by GLI sensor. These data have enough capability to monitor the density and vigor of green vegetation. GLI data has high potential for vegetation monitoring, and it will contribute to the future satellite sensor. 23 channels are dedicated for land observations in the two spatial resolutions (1km/250m). MODIS sensor has also 1km/250m resolution and various land products, which include VIs. This paper shows the preliminary evaluation of GLI land products for vegetation monitoring using MODIS VIs product.