Land surface black-sky albedo at a fixed solar zenith angle and its relation to forest structure during peak growing season based on remote sensing data

Sara Alibakhshi; Thomas W Crowther; Babak Naimi

doi:10.1016/j.dib.2020.105720

Land surface black-sky albedo at a fixed solar zenith angle and its relation to forest structure during peak growing season based on remote sensing data

Data Brief. 2020 May 20:31:105720. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2020.105720. eCollection 2020 Aug.

Authors

Sara Alibakhshi¹, Thomas W Crowther², Babak Naimi³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Built Environment, School of Engineering, Aalto University, P.O. Box 14100, 00076 Aalto, Finland.
² Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 64, 00014 Helsinki, Finland.
³ Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zürich, Universitätstrasse 16, P.O. Box 8092, Zürich, Switzerland.

Abstract

Satellite data provide the opportunity to explore different land surface properties, such as albedo (reflectivity) and forest structure, for multidisciplinary purposes. We estimated land surface black-sky albedo at shortwave, near-infrared and visible spectral regions at a fixed solar zenith angle (i.e., 38^∘) during peak growing season in 2005 on a global scale. In addition, we estimated the links between albedo and forest structure variables including forest density [the number of trees/km²], tree cover [percent], and leaf area index [m²/m²] over pure forest pixels during peak growing season in 2005 on a global scale. We acquired and processed remotely sensed variables from moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Landsat satellite images. This article provides 1) dataset of black-sky albedo at fixed solar zenith angle at a 1-km spatial resolution, 2) comparison between black-sky albedos at fixed solar zenith angle and local noon at a 1-km spatial resolution that are grouped based on forest types with the classes of evergreen needleleaf, evergreen broadleaf, deciduous needleleaf, deciduous broadleaf, mixed and woody savannah forests, and also the major biome zones including boreal, mediterranean, temperate and tropical region. 3) the links between black-sky albedo at fixed solar zenith angle and forest structure using generalized additive models at a 0.5-degree spatial resolution during peak growing season in 2005. The pre-processing steps to enhance the accuracy of these datasets include: (1) identifying pure forest pixels, (2) excluding high slope pixels and those covered partially by water in the albedo product using high spatial resolution water (i.e., 30-m spatial resolution) and slope (i.e., 90-m spatial resolution) masks, and (3) using the most recent collection (collection 6) of MODIS satellite images. More details and interpretations of these datasets can be found in Alibakhshi et al. (2020) [1].

Keywords: albedo; forest structure forest density; leaf area index; tree cover.