A snapshot of the global distribution of scale solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence, a widely accepted proxy for plant photosynthesis, estimated for the first 16 days of August 2015. Hot colors correspond to higher photosynthesis. Credit: Yu et al., 2018, Figure 2a
Source: Geophysical Research Letters

Quantification of global land photosynthesis at high resolution and in real-time is ‘holy grail’ for ecologic research and agricultural applications. The emergence of new remote sensing data on solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), an optical signal emitted when light is absorbed by leaves, opens new opportunities to quantifying photosynthesis over the land-surface at global scale.

Yu et al. [2018] use innovative computational techniques and intelligent stratification of earth’s biomes to produce a data set that takes us one step closer to making real-time global assessments feasible. The high resolution, consistent, and spatially contiguous data product developed in this study will greatly aid in a variety of applications aiming to understand the ecophysiological function of vegetation, such as drought monitoring and mitigation, agricultural planning and yield estimation, and remote sensing data benchmarking.

Citation: Yu, L., Wen, J., Chang, C. Y., Frankenberg, C., & Sun, Y. [2018]. High‐Resolution Global Contiguous SIF of OCO‐2. Geophysical Research Letters, 45. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL081109

— Valeriy Ivanov, Editor, Geophysical Research Letters

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