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The uncertainty analysis of the MODIS GPP product in global maize croplands

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Abstract

Gross primary productivity (GPP) is very important in the global carbon cycle. Currently, the newly released estimates of 8-day GPP at 500 m spatial resolution (Collection 6) are provided by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Land Science Team for the global land surface via the improved light use efficiency (LUE) model. However, few studies have evaluated its performance. In this study, the MODIS GPP products (GPPMOD) were compared with the observed GPP (GPPEC) values from site-level eddy covariance measurements over seven maize flux sites in different areas around the world. The results indicate that the annual GPPMOD was underestimated by 6%‒58% across sites. Nevertheless, after incorporating the parameters of the calibrated LUE, the measurements of meteorological variables and the reconstructed Fractional Photosynthetic Active Radiation (FPAR) into the GPPMOD algorithm in steps, the accuracies of GPPMOD estimates were improved greatly, albeit to varying degrees. The differences between the GPPMOD and the GPPEC were primarily due to the magnitude of LUE and FPAR. The underestimate of maize cropland LUE was a widespread problem which exerted the largest impact on the GPPMOD algorithm. In American and European sites, the performance of the FPAR exhibited distinct differences in capturing vegetation GPP during the growing season due to the canopy heterogeneity. In addition, at the DE-Kli site, the GPPMOD abruptly produced extreme low values during the growing season because of the contaminated FPAR from a continuous rainy season. After correcting the noise of the FPAR, the accuracy of the GPPMOD was improved by approximately 14%. Therefore, it is crucial to further improve the accuracy of global GPPMOD, especially for the maize crop ecosystem, to maintain food security and better understand global carbon cycle.

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Acknowledgements

This work is jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41771453), National Key Technology R&D Program of China (2016YFC0500106), Special Project of Science and Technology Basic Work (2014FY210800-5), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China (SWU116088). We are grateful to the availability of the tower flux data of maize sites from Fluxnet and ChinaFlux.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chongqing Engineering Research Center for Remote Sensing Big Data Application, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China

    Xiaojuan Huang, Mingguo Ma & Xuguang Tang

  2. Research Base of Karst Eco-environments at Nanchuan in Chongqing, Ministry of Natural Resources, School of Geographical Sciences, Southwest University, Chongqing, 400715, China

    Xiaojuan Huang, Mingguo Ma & Xuguang Tang

  3. Northwest Institute of Eco-environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Xufeng Wang

  4. Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6AB, UK

    Hong Yang

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  1. Xiaojuan Huang
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Correspondence to Mingguo Ma.

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Huang, X., Ma, M., Wang, X. et al. The uncertainty analysis of the MODIS GPP product in global maize croplands. Front. Earth Sci. 12, 739–749 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-018-0716-x

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