An analytical algorithm for the determination of vegetation Leaf Area Index from TRMM/TMI data

In this paper, an analytical algorithm for the determination of land surface vegetation Leaf Area Index (LAI) with the passive microwave remote sensing data is developed. With the developed algorithm and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission/Microwave Imager (TRMM/TMI) remote sensing data collected during the Global Energy and Water Experiment (GEWEX) Asian Monsoon Experiment in Tibet (GAME/Tibet) Intensive Observation Period (IOP'98), the regional and temporal distributions of the land surface vegetation LAI have been evaluated. To validate the developed algorithm and the retrieval results, the maximum-composite Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data over the same study area and period are used in this study; the cloud contaminated NDVI values have been replaced by the cloud-free values reconstructed by the Harmonic ANnalysis of Time Series (HANTS) technique. The results show that the retrieved LAI is in good agreement with the cloud-free NDVI in regional and temporal distributions and in their statistical characteristics; the vegetation characteristics can be clearly assessed from the regional distribution of the retrieved LAI. As lower frequency microwave radiation can penetrate atmosphere and thin cloud layer, with the application of the passive microwave remote sensing data, the developed algorithm can be used to monitor the land surface vegetation condition more effectively.