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.
As an example, the image here shows the LAI over part of central Africa in July 2010. It clearly shows more arid areas, desert, to the north with low LAI and more dense vegetation to the south.