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BigFoot GPP Surfaces for North and South American Sites, 2000-2004

Metadata Updated: September 19, 2025

The BigFoot project gathered Gross Primary Production (GPP) data for nine EOS Land Validation Sites located from Alaska to Brazil from 2000 to 2004. Each site is representative of one or two distinct biomes, including the Arctic tundra; boreal evergreen needleleaf forest; temperate cropland, grassland, evergreen needleleaf forest, and deciduous broadleaf forest; desert grassland and shrubland; and tropical evergreen broadleaf forest. At this time we are archiving Northern Old Black Spruce (NOBS - BOREAS NSA, Canada) and Harvard Forest LTER (HARV - Massachusetts, USA) data collected in 2001.The GPP surfaces were produced by a spatial version of an ecosystem process model named, Biome-BGC. Inputs to the model included Landsat ETM+ derived Land Cover and LAI, tower derived meteorological variables, and a set of site level ecophysical parameters. The model was calibrated using field measured NPP and validated by tower derived estimates of GPP. For an in depth discussion of methods used to produce these surfaces, please see Turner et al. (2003).Each BigFoot GPP product covers a 7 x 7 km extent and consists of the GPP surface in BIP format (280 rows by 280 columns by 365 bands at 25 meter resolution) and an accompanying text file which provides metadata specific to the image (such as projection, data type, etc). Additional information on GPP surface development can be found on the BigFoot website at http://www.fsl.orst.edu/larse/bigfoot/ovr_mthd.html.BigFoot Project Background: Reflectance data from MODIS, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer onboard NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) satellite Terra (http://landval.gsfc.nasa.gov/MODIS/index.php), is used to produce several science products including land cover, leaf area index (LAI), gross primary production (GPP) and net primary production (NPP). The overall goal of the BigFoot Project was to provide validation of these products. To do this, BigFoot combined ground measurements, additional high resolution remote sensing data, and ecosystem process models at nine flux tower sites representing different biomes to evaluate the effects of the spatial and temporal patterns of ecosystem characteristics on MODIS products. BigFoot characterized up to a 7 x 7 km area (49 MODIS pixels) surrounding the CO2 flux towers located at each of the nine sites. We collected multi-year, in situ measurements of ecosystem structure and functional characteristics related to the terrestrial carbon cycle. Our sampling design allowed us to examine scales and spatial pattern of these properties, the inter-annual variability and validity of MODIS products, and provided for a field-based ecological characterization of the flux tower footprint. BigFoot was funded by NASA's Terrestrial Ecology Program.For more details on the BigFoot Project, please visit the website: http://www.fsl.orst.edu/larse/bigfoot/index.html.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025
Publisher ORNL_DAAC
Maintainer
Identifier 10.3334/ORNLDAAC/749
Data Last Modified 2025-09-10
Category Earth Science
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id b6dc2781-32b2-4699-b36e-4ccc4d1fdd2b
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://search.earthdata.nasa.gov/search?q=GPP_surfaces_749&ac=true
Old Spatial {"WestBoundingCoordinate":-156.613,"NorthBoundingCoordinate":71.2719,"EastBoundingCoordinate":-54.96,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":-2.86},"CARTESIAN"
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash d33ec86924f3e4b6078f5aeeba3af1790d66fe5c1fb1285900672183038e4ef8
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 2000-01-01/2000-01-01

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