• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.481-494
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• 2011

Investigation of the $CO_2$ exchange between biosphere and atmosphere at regional, continental, and global scales can be directed to combining remote sensing with carbon cycle process to estimate vegetation productivity. NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) currently produces a regular global estimate of gross primary productivity (GPP) and annual net primary productivity (NPP) of the entire terrestrial earth surface at 1 km spatial resolution. While the MODIS GPP algorithm uses meteorological data provided by the NASA Data Assimilation Office (DAO), the sub-pixel heterogeneity or complex terrain are generally reflected due to coarse spatial resolutions of the DAO data (a resolution of $1{\circ}\;{\times}\;1.25{\circ}$). In this study, we estimated inputs retrieved from MODIS products of the AQUA and TERRA satellites with 5 km spatial resolution for the purpose of finer GPP and/or NPP determinations. The derivatives included temperature, VPD, and solar radiation. Seven AmeriFlux data located in the Corn Belt region were obtained to use for evaluation of the input data from MODIS. MODIS-derived air temperature values showed a good agreement with ground-based observations. The mean error (ME) and coefficient of correlation (R) ranged from $-0.9^{\circ}C$ to $+5.2^{\circ}C$ and from 0.83 to 0.98, respectively. VPD somewhat coarsely agreed with tower observations (ME = -183.8 Pa ~ +382.1 Pa; R = 0.51 ~ 0.92). While MODIS-derived shortwave radiation showed a good correlation with observations, it was slightly overestimated (ME = -0.4 MJ $day^{-1}$ ~ +7.9 MJ $day^{-1}$; R = 0.67 ~ 0.97). Our results indicate that the use of inputs derived MODIS atmosphere and land products can provide a useful tool for estimating crop GPP.