Leaf Area Index

Team Members: Yuan Zhou

Background

Leaf Area Index (LAI) is a fundamental parameter for characterizing vegetation structure and plays a critical role in hydrological, ecological, agricultural, and climatological studies. In the next-generation Noah Multi-Parameterization (Noah-MP) Land Surface Model, LAI serves as a crucial input for accurately representing vegetation dynamics.

To support numerical weather forecasting, the VIIRS LAI product has been developed using a data-driven approach. It was based on existing LAI products, such as MODIS and GLASS, with advanced machine learning models. The resulting LAI dataset undergoes temporal smoothing and gap-filling procedures, producing a global product at 1 km spatial resolution, updated every 8 days.