ABoVE: Landsat Tundra Greenness and Summer Air Temperatures, Arctic Tundra, 1985-2016

This dataset provides annual tundra greenness and summer air temperatures at a resolution of 50 km over the pan-Arctic tundra biome above 31.5 degrees over the time period 1985 to 2016. Annual tundra greenness was assessed using the maximum Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVImax) derived from surface reflectance measured by sensors on the Landsat satellites. Summer air temperatures were quantified using the Summer Warmth Index (SWI) derived from an ensemble of five global temperature datasets. Tabular data include NDVImax, SWI, and estimates of uncertainty using Monte Carlo simulations at 45,334 vegetated sampling sites. Raster data provide (1) annual SWI from 1985 to 2016; (2) temporal trends in annual NDVImax and SWI from 1985 to 2016 and from 2000 to 2016; and (3) temporal correlations between annual NDVImax - SWI during these two periods. Each raster also includes estimates of uncertainty that were generated using Monte Carlo simulations. This dataset provides a new pan-Arctic product for assessing inter-annual variability in tundra using moderate resolution observations from the Landsat satellites.