LAI in central Africa July 2010 and July 2018

Climate modellers rely on satellite data to assess the health and growth of the world’s vegetation. ESA’s Climate Change Initiative’s latest data release provides a consistent time series to meet modellers’ needs. This new dataset comprises the Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR), which describes how much solar radiation is being absorbed by the leaves as well as information on Leaf Area Index (LAI), which describes the amount of leaf area in the canopy.

The images here show the difference in LAI over part of central Africa between July 2010 and July 2018. The images clearly show more arid areas, desert, to the north with low LAI and more dense vegetation to the south. The higher LAI in 2018 compared to 2010 is likely owing to the series of drought that had affected the area in 2008 and 2010, for example.

Read full story: Vegetation gets a boost with data from space