Monitoring global vegetation using Nimbus-7 37 GHz Data Some empirical relations

Abstract The difference of the vertically and horizontally polarized brightness temperatures observed by the 37 GHz channel of the Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR) on board the Nimbus-7 satellite are correlated temporally with three indicators of vegetation density, namely the temporal variation of the atmospheric CO2 concentration at Mauna Loa (Hawaii), rainfall over the Sahel and the normalized difference vegetation index derived from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) on board the NOAA-7 satellite. We find the SMMR 37GHz and AVHRR provide complementary data sets for monitoring global vegetation, the 37 GHz data being more suitable for arid and semi-arid regions as these data are more sensitive to changes in sparse vegetation. The 37 GHz data might be useful for understanding desertification and indexing CO2 exchange between the biosphere and the atmosphere.