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Full catalog/Boreal_CanopyCover_StandAge_2012
Boreal_CanopyCover_StandAge_2012·v1·dataset

Tree cover and forest age in the boreal zone (Landsat)

ABoVE: Tree Canopy Cover and Stand Age from Landsat, Boreal Forest Biome, 1984-2020
biosphere NASA ORNL_CLOUD Level 4 COG
In plain English

What it measures. Yearly maps of how much of the ground is covered by tree canopy and how old the forest stand is, across the northern boreal forests from 1984 to 2020. Each map cell is about 30 meters across.

How it's made. Built from Landsat satellite images run through machine-learning models that were trained on reference measurements, with stand age worked out by tracking how tree cover changed over the years.

How & where you'd use it. Helps researchers follow how boreal forests grow, age, and change over time, which matters because these forests hold a huge share of the world's stored carbon and have been warming fast.

What's measured

BIOSPHERE › VEGETATION › VEGETATION COVERBIOSPHERE › ECOSYSTEMS › TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS › FORESTSBIOSPHERE › VEGETATION › CANOPY CHARACTERISTICS

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1984-01-01 → 2020-12-31
  • Measured byLANDSAT-8 (OLI, TIRS) · LANDSAT-7 (ETM+) · LANDSAT-5 (MSS, TM) · COMPUTERS (Computer)
  • Processing levelLevel 4
  • Spatial extent-180, 45, 180, 73
  • FormatsCOG
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Map vegetation, forests and biomass
  • Monitor ecosystem productivity and carbon
  • Support habitat and biodiversity studies
Official description

This dataset contains Landsat-derived locally-calibrated estimates of tree canopy cover (TCC) and forest stand age across global boreal forests from 1984-2020 in Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF (*.tif) format. These raster data span the circum-hemispheric boreal forest biome between 47 to 73 degrees north at 30 m resolution. Machine learning models calibrated with data from the World Reference System 2 were used to predict TCC from Landsat data at 30-m spatial resolution at annual temporal resolution. Through analysis of TCC time series, forest change estimates of stand age from 1984-2020 were developed. The broad spatial and temporal coverage of these data provide insight into forest and carbon dynamics of the global boreal forest system. Boreal forests store a large proportion of global soil and biomass carbon and have experienced disproportionately high levels of warming over the past century.

Get the data

boreal_canopycover_standage_2012_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="Boreal_CanopyCover_StandAge_2012",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from ORNL_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.