Yearly cycle of plant greenness, second version (0.05 deg)

In plain English

What it measures. A long-running, year-by-year picture of the seasonal life cycle of vegetation worldwide, captured through greenness indexes (NDVI and a version of EVI). It includes phenology markers like when each growing season starts and peaks.

How it's made. Stitched together from older AVHRR satellite data (1981-1999) and MODIS/Terra data (2000-2014) to make one consistent 30-plus-year record on a roughly 5.6-km global grid.

How & where you'd use it. Lets researchers track how growing seasons shift over decades, study how plants respond to a changing environment, and compare vegetation health across regions and years.

What's measured

BIOSPHERE › VEGETATION › PLANT PHENOLOGYBIOSPHERE › VEGETATION › VEGETATION INDEXCLIMATE INDICATORS › BIOSPHERIC INDICATORS › PHENOLOGICAL CHANGES › PLANT PHENOLOGICAL CHANGESBIOSPHERE › VEGETATION › VEGETATION INDEX › ENHANCED VEGETATION INDEX (EVI)

Coverage & cadence

Time span1981-01-01 → 2014-12-31
Measured byNOAA-7 (AVHRR) · NOAA-9 (AVHRR) · NOAA-11 (AVHRR) · NOAA-14 (AVHRR) · Terra (MODIS)
Processing levelLevel 3
Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
FormatsHDF-EOS2
StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

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

Official description

The NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments ([MEaSUREs](https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/competitive-programs/measures)) Vegetation Index and Phenology (VIP) global datasets were created using surface reflectance data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) N07, N09, N11, and N14 datasets (1981 – 1999) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)/Terra MOD09 surface reflectance data (2000 - 2014). The VIP Vegetation Index (VI) product was developed to provide consistent measurements of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and modified Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI2) spanning more than 30 years of data from multiple sensors. The EVI2 is a backward extension of AVHRR. Vegetation indices such as NDVI and EVI2 are useful for assessing the biophysical properties of the land surface, and are used to characterize vegetation phenology. Phenology tracks the seasonal life cycle of vegetation, and provides information on the biotic response to environmental changes. The VIPPHEN data product is provided globally at 0.05 degree (5600 meters (m)) spatial resolution in geographic (Lat/Lon) grid format. The data are stored in Hierarchical Data Format-Earth Observing System (HDF-EOS) file format. The VIPPHEN phenology product contains 26 Science Datasets (SDS) which include phenological metrics such as the start, peak, and end of season as well as the rate of greening and senescence. The product also provides the maximum, average, and background calculated VIs. The VIPPHEN SDS are based on the daily VIP product series and are calculated using a 3-year moving window average to smooth out noise in the data. A reliability SDS is included to provide context on the quality of the input data.

Get the data

vipphen_evi2_access.py

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="VIPPHEN_EVI2",
    version="004",
    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 LPCLOUD

Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.

What's measured

Coverage & cadence

What you can do with it

Get the data

Official links