The Canadian long term satellite data record (LTDR) derived from 1-km resolution Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data was produced by the Canada Center for Remote Sensing (CCRS). Processing included: geolocation, calibration, and compositing using Earth Observation Data Manager (Latifovic et al. 2005), cloud screening (Khlopenkov and Trishchenko, 2006), BRDF correction (Latifovic et. al., 2003), atmosphere and other corrections as described in Cihlar et. al. (2004). For temporal analysis of vegetation cross-sensor correction of Latifovic et al. (2012) is advised. Data collected by the AVHRR instrument on board the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 9,11,14,16,17,18 and 19 satellites were used to generate Canada-wide 1-km 10-day AVHRR composites. Data are available starting in 1985. It is important to note that there are three types of AVHRR sensors: (i) AVHRR-1 flown onboard TIROS-N, NOAA-6, NOAA-8, and NOAA-10; (ii) AVHRR-2 flown onboard NOAA-7, NOAA-9, NOAA-11, NOAA-12, and NOAA-14; and (iii) AVHRR-3 currently operational onboard NOAA-15, NOAA-16, NOAA-17, NOAA-18 and NOAA-19. The AVHRR-1 has four channels, AVHRR-2 has five channels and the AVHRR-3 has six channels, although only five channels of AVHRR-3 can be operational at any one time. As such, channels 3A (1.6 m) and 3B (3.7 m) work interchangeably. The processing procedure was designed to minimize artefacts in AVHRR composite images. There are thirty six 10-day image composites per year. The following three processing levels are provided: P1) top of atmosphere reflectance and brightness temperature, P2) reflectance at surface and surface temperature and P3) reflectance at surface normalized to a common viewing geometry (BRDF normalization). The processing level P1 and P2 are provided for all 36 composites while level P3 is provided for 21 composites from April – October.

Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) sensors were used to generate the circa 2010 Mosaic of Canada at 30 m spatial resolution. All scenes were processed to Standard Terrain Correction Level 1T by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Further processing performed by the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing included conversion of sensor measurements to top of atmosphere reflectance, cloud and cloud shadow detection, re-projection, selection of best measurements, mosaic generation ,noise removal and quality control. To provide a clear sky measurement for each location in Canada, data from the years 2009, 2010, and 2011 were used, but 2010 was preferentially selected. Bands 3 (0.63-0.69 µm), 4 (0.76-0.90 µm), 5 (1.55-1.75 µm), and 7 (2.08-2.35 µm) are provided in this version as significant atmosphere effects strongly limit the quality of the blue (0.45-0.52 µm) and green (0.52-0.60 µm) bands. Multi-criteria compositing was used for the selection of the most representative pixel. For ETM+ onboard Landsat 7 a scan line malfunction caused missing lines of data in all scenes collected after May 2003. Atmosphere and target variability between scenes cause these lines to have significant radiometric differences in some cases. A Fourier transformation approach was applied to correct this occurrence. This mosaic was developed for land cover and biophysical mapping applications across Canada. Other applications of these data are also possible, but should consider the temporal and spectral limitations of the product. Research to enhance the spatial, spectral and temporal aspects are in development for future versions of moderate resolution products from historical Landsat sensors, Landsat 8, and Sentinel 2 data.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS ) is one of the most sophisticated sensors that is used in a wide range of applications related to land, ocean and atmosphere. It has 36 spectral channels with spatial resolution varying between 250 m and 1 km at nadir. MODIS channels 1 (B1, visible) and 2 (B2, near infrared) are available at 250 m spatial resolution, an additional five channels for terrestrial applications (bands B3 to B7) are available at 500 m spatial resolution, the other twenty-nine channels not included in this data set capture images with a spatial resolution of 1 km. The MODIS record begins in March 2000 and extends to present with daily measurements over the globe. This level 3 product for Canada was created from the following original Level 1 (1B) MODIS data (collection 5): a) MOD02QKM - Level 1B 250 m swath data, 5 min granules; b ) MOD02HKM - level 1B , 500 m swath data, 5 min granules; c) MOD03 - level 1 geolocation information, 1 km swath data, 5 min granules. All these data are available from the DAAC Earth Observing System Data Gateway (NASA http://ladsweb.nascom.nasa.gov/data/search.html). The terrestrial channels MODIS (B3 to B7) at 500 m spatial resolution were reduced to 250 m with an adaptive regression system and normalization described in Trishchenko et al. (2006, 2009), and the data were mapped using a Lambert Conformal Conic (LCC ) projection (Khlopenkov et al., 2008). These data were combined to form pan-Canadian images using a technique for detection of clear sky, clouds and cloud shadows with a maximum interval of 10 days (Luo et al., 2008). Atmospheric and sun-sensor geometry corrections have not been applied. For each date, data include forward and backward scattering observations as separate files. This allows data to be optimized for a given application. For general use, data from either forward or backward scattering or both should be used. Future release of the MODIS time series will correct the forward and backward scattering geometry to provide a single best observation for each pixel.

The MODIS surface albedo dataset was produced by the Canada Center for Remote Sensing (CCRS), Natural Resources Canada. The dataset represents the solar shortwave broadband surface albedo and it is at a 10-day interval covering the entire Canadian landmass as well as northern USA, Alaska, and the Greenland. The dataset was derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard the TERRA satellite which provides a global coverage every 1-2 days in 36 spectral bands ranging from visible to infrared and to thermal wavelengths between 405 and 14,385 nm, and was available since 2000. For the estimation of surface albedo, the first seven spectral bands of B1 to B7 ranging from 459 nm to 2155 nm were used. B1 and B2 have a 250 meter resolution and B3 to B7 have a 500 meter resolution. A downscaling method using a regression and normalization scheme was employed to downscale the bands B3 to B7 to 250 meter resolution while preserving radiometric properties of the original data. To obtain clear-sky observations from MODIS, composite images for a 10 day period were generated by using a series of advanced algorithms (Luo et al., 2008). The 10-day composites of B1-B7 reflectance were then used to retrieve spatially continuous spectral albedo by using a combined land/snow BRDF (Bi-directional Reflectance Distribution Function) model. In that method, the modified RossThick-LiSparse BRDF model (Maignan et al., 2004) for land and Kokhanovsky and Zege’s model (2004) for snow are linearly combined for mixed surface conditions. They are weighted by snow fraction (0.0 ~ 1.0). The seven spectral albedo were then converted into the shortwave broadband surface albedo using the empirical MODIS polynomial conversion equation of Liang et al. (1999). The data product is in LCC (Lambert Conformal Conic) projection with a 250m pixel resolution. There are 36 albedo images per year. A dataset representing the pixel state (e.g. cloud/shadow, snow/ice, water, land, et al.) was also generated for each 10-day corresponding to the surface albedo product. References: Kokhanovsky, A. A. and Zege, E. P., 2004, Scattering Optics of Snow, Applied Optics, 43, 1589-1602, doi:10.1364/AO.43.001589, 20. Liang, S., Strahler, A.H., Walthall, C., 1999. Retrieval of land surface albedo from satellite observations: a simulation study. J. Appl. Meteorol. 38, 712–725. Luo, Y., Trishchenko, A.P., Khlopenkov, K.V., 2008. Developing clear-sky, cloud and cloud shadow mask for producing clear-sky composites at 250-meter spatial resolution for the seven MODIS land bands over Canada and North America. Remote Sens. Environ. 112, 4167–4185. Maignan, F., F.M. Bréon and R. Lacaze, 2004, Bidirectional reflectance of Earth targets : evaluation of analytical models using a large set of spaceborne measurements with emphasis with the hot spot, Remote Sens. Environ., 90, 210-220.