U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service Research and Development Division

In late 2000, the USGS EROS Data Center informed NASS that the orbital characteristics of the NOAA-14 AVHRR satellite were deteriorating. NASS decided to pull the 2000 AVHRR/NDVI images from our web site.

The NOAA-16 satellite was launched to begin AVHRR coverage in 2001. NASS has monitored the NOAA-16 AVHRR progress throughout the 2001 and the beginning of the 2002 growing season to research how to best utilize the data supplied from the NOAA-16 satellite. The main issues were if and how to utilize the data that has been adjusted for the effects of atmospheric water vapor. NASS studied the difference this adjustment makes. The resultant differences are not consistent across the country or throughout the growing season. Therefore, in the interest of consistency with NASS'S data series, we used the non water vapor corrected data for 2001-2003.

The NOAA-16 satellite developed a scan motor problem in early 2004. This caused one side of the images to look like a grocery store 'barcode'. Beginning with late April 2004, we will use imagery from the NOAA-17 (AM) satellite to monitor vegetation condition. Since the new sensor's data may not be directly comparable to that of NOAA-16, we will not post any ratio based images. We also plan to continue using non-water vapor corrected data.

For more information about this topic or about the NASS Spatial Analysis Research Section (SARS), contact the GeoSpatial Information Branch at HQ_RDD_GIB@nass.usda.gov.