This data set contains hydrology, soils, radiation, cloud, and vegetation data from the International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) Initiative I. The ISLSCP data sets should provide LBA modelers with many of the fields required to describe boundary conditions, and to initialize and force a wide range of land-biosphere-atmosphere models. All of the data have been processed to the same global spatial resolution (1 deg. x 1 deg.), using the same land/sea mask and steps have been taken to ensure spatial and temporal continuity of the data. The data sets cover the period 1987-1988 at 1-month time resolution for most of the seasonally varying quantities. For this pre-LBA data set, the ISLSCP I data are provided as global coverages. The companion file illustrations were subset over the LBA study area, from 35-85 deg. W longitude and 20 deg. S to 10 deg. N latitude, as shown in Figure 1.The data files and illustrations are organized into the three groups listed below.1. Hydrology and Soils2. Radiation and Clouds3. VegetationThe data within each of these areas were acquired from a variety of sources including model output, satellites, and ground measurements. The individual data sets were provided in a variety of forms. In some cases, this required the data publication team to regrid and reformat data sets and in others to produce monthly averages from finer resolution data. The specific processing for each data set is detailed in the documentation. The processed, quality controlled and integrated data in the documented Pre-LBA Data sets were originally published as a set of three CD-ROMs (Marengo and Victoria, 1998) but are now archived individually.

This data set provides gridded data for selected soil parameters derived from data and methods developed by the Global Soil Data Task, an international collaborative project with the objective of making accurate and appropriate data relating to soil properties accessible to the global change research community. The task was coordinated by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP-DIS). The data in this data set were produced by the International Satellite Land-Surface Climatology Project, Initiative II (ISLSCP II) staff from data obtained from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center (ORNL DAAC, http://daac.ornl.gov/). See the related data sets section below. Two-dimensional gridded maps of selected soil parameters, including soil texture, at a 1.0 by 1.0 degree spatial resolution and for two soil depths are provided. All data layers have been adjusted to match the ISLSCP II land/water mask. There are 36 data files with this data set.

This data set includes in situ vegetation data collected during the Cloud and Land Surface Interaction Campaign 2007 (CLASIC07) campaign. Sampling was designed to coincide with satellite overpasses, such as Landsat's Thematic Mapper (TM) 5 and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor on NASA's Terra satellite (MODIS/Terra), which can be then used to estimate vegetation water content on the regional scale.

This data set includes in situ vegetation data collected during the Cloud and Land Surface Interaction Campaign 2007 (CLASIC07) campaign. Sampling was designed to coincide with satellite overpasses, such as Landsat's Thematic Mapper (TM) 5 and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor on NASA's Terra satellite (MODIS/Terra), which can be then used to estimate vegetation water content on the regional scale.

The Historical Land Cover and Land Use data set was developed to provide the global change community with historical land use estimates. The data set describes historical land use changes over a 300-year historical period (1700-1990).Testing against historical data is an important step for validating integrated models of global environmental change. Owing to long time lags in the climate and biogeochemical systems, these models should aim to simulate the land use dynamics for long periods, i.e., spanning decades to centuries. Developing such models requires an understanding of past and current trends and is therefore strongly data dependent. For this purpose, a historical database of the global environment has been developed: HYDE. Historical statistical inventories on agricultural land (census data, tax records, land surveys, etc) and different spatial analysis techniques were used to create a geographically-explicit data set of land use change, with a regular time interval. The data set can be used to test integrated models of global change. Continental-scale historical data were used for that period.

This data set was developed to describe the state of the global land cover in terms of 15 major vegetation types, plus water, before alteration by humans. It forms a complement to the historical croplands data set developed by Ramankutty and Foley (1999). By overlaying the two, one can determine the extent to which natural vegetation has been cleared for cultivation. This data set can be used directly within spatially-explicit climate and biogeochemical models. There are four total files in this data set. Two files contain the land cover types representing potential natural vegetation before human alteration, and two other files contain those points in the original data set submitted by the Principal Investigator that have been modified in order to match the land/water mask of the ISLSCP Initiative II.The geographic distribution of contemporary land cover types can be derived from remotely-sensed data. However, humans now dominate much of the world and there is little evidence of the pre-human-settlement natural vegetation or Potential Natural Vegetation (PNV). PNV, as defined here, does not necessarily represent the world's natural pre-human-disturbance vegetation. Rather, our definition of PNV represents the world's vegetation cover that would most likely exist now in equilibrium with present-day climate and natural disturbance, in the absence of human activities.

This data set, ISLSCP II MODIS (Collection 4) IGBP Land Cover, 2000-2001, contains global land cover classifications (dominant type, classification confidence and fractional cover) generated using a full year of MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data covering the period from October 2000 to October 2001. The objective of the MODIS Land Cover Product is to provide a suite of land cover types useful to global system science modelers by exploiting the information content of MODIS data in the spectral, temporal, spatial, and directional domains. These products describe the geographic distribution of the 17 land cover classification scheme proposed by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP).

This data set provides a digital mosaic of the Amazon River floodplain that was compiled using Landsat TM images. This mosaic was planned in July 1995 as an activity of the EOS-IDS Project that was developed with cooperation among INPE, CENA, University of Washington in Seattle (UW), University of California in Santa Barbara (UCSB), and NASA. The mosaic is composed by 29 Landsat TM images covering a period from 1986 to 1995 that were selected with minimum cloud cover and within the July to September high water season of the Amazon River. These images were geometrically corrected using ground control points extracted from topographic charts and image charts at the 1:250,000 scale. In addition, these images were radiometrically rectified to 231/062 (Manaus region) TM image using the method developed by Hall et al. (1991). The radiometric rectification applied had a good performance for bands 3, 5, and 7, for most of the scenes. For bands 1 and 2 the radiometric rectification was limited, especially for scenes with intense haze. Nevertheless, the overall performance of radiometric normalization allowed the production of a uniform data set for the entire Brazilian Amazon River mainstem floodplain. The mosaic was then built using the best bands (rectified or non-rectified) of the TM images with 90 meter spatial resolution. The mosaic data are provided in geoTIFF-formatted files, rectified and geocoded, for six TM bands (1 to 5 and 7) with 90-meter spatial resolution. The mosaic is divided in two parts: Part 1, from the mouth of the Amazon river in Brazil to the Brazil/Peru boundary and Part 2, from the Brazil/Peru boundary to its spring.There is also a 500-meter resolution mosaic covering all the Amazon river (from spring to the mouth) with geoTIFF-formatted data files for TM bands 3, 4, and 5. The processed, quality controlled and integrated data in the documented Pre-LBA Data sets were originally published as a set of three CD_ROMs (Marengo and Victoria, 1998) but are now archived individually.

The Historical Croplands Cover data set was developed to understand the consequences of historical changes in land use and land cover for ecosystem goods and services. In particular, this data set can be used to study how global changes in cultivated area has influenced climate, biogeochemical cycles, biodiversity, etc. This data set can be used directly within spatially-explicit climate and biogeochemical models.This is a gridded data set describing the fraction of each grid cell in the globe that is occupied by cultivated land from 1700 to 1992. Data layers are provided for every 50 years from 1700 to 1850, every 10 years from 1850 to 1980, and every year from 1986 to 1992.There are two sources of global land cover/land use data. The most recent estimates are derived from satellite measurements, and are available in a spatially-explicit fashion for roughly the last 30 years. The other estimate is based on ground-based sources such as census statistics, land surveys, estimates by historical geographers, etc. These land inventory data are only available at the scale of political units, but have the advantage of being historical. Ramankutty and Foley (1998) derived a spatially-explicit data set of croplands in 1992 by synthesizing remotely-sensed land cover data with contemporary land inventory data. Furthermore, Ramankutty and Foley (1999) extended this data set into the past (back to 1700) using historical land inventory data.The data set should only be used for continental-to-global scale analysis and modeling. The data set captures the broad patterns of cropland change over history, but not necessarily the fine details at local to regional scales - please check the data quality before using it at fine spatial scales. The quality of historical data for the Russian Federation is poor. The quality of data prior to 1850 is poor -- only continental-scale historical data were used for that period.

The objective of the International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP II) study that produced this data set, ISLSCP II University of Maryland Global Land Cover Classifications 1992-1993, was to create a land cover map derived from 1 kilometer Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data using all available bands, derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and a full year of data (April 1992-March 1993). This thematic map was resampled to 0.25, 0.5 and 1.0 degree grids. During this re-processing, the original University of Maryland (UMD) land cover type and fraction maps were adjusted to match the water/land fraction of the ISLSCP II land/water mask. These maps were generated for use by modelers of global biogeochemical cycles and others in need of an internally consistent, global depiction of land cover. This 1km map was also one of the Moderate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) at-launch land cover maps. This product describes the geographic distributions of 13 classes of vegetation cover (plus water and unclassified classes) based on a modified International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) legend. The data set also provides the fraction of each of the 15 classes within the coarser resolution cells, at three spatial resolutions of 0.25, 0.5 and 1.0 degrees in latitude and longitude.