A comparison of methods for smoothing and gap filling time series of remote sensing observations – application to MODIS LAI products
Open Access
- 20 June 2013
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Copernicus GmbH in Biogeosciences (online)
- Vol. 10 (6), 4055-4071
- https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-10-4055-2013
Abstract
Moderate resolution satellite sensors including MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) already provide more than 10 yr of observations well suited to describe and understand the dynamics of earth's surface. However, these time series are associated with significant uncertainties and incomplete because of cloud cover. This study compares eight methods designed to improve the continuity by filling gaps and consistency by smoothing the time course. It includes methods exploiting the time series as a whole (iterative caterpillar singular spectrum analysis (ICSSA), empirical mode decomposition (EMD), low pass filtering (LPF) and Whittaker smoother (Whit)) as well as methods working on limited temporal windows of a few weeks to few months (adaptive Savitzky–Golay filter (SGF), temporal smoothing and gap filling (TSGF), and asymmetric Gaussian function (AGF)), in addition to the simple climatological LAI yearly profile (Clim). Methods were applied to the MODIS leaf area index product for the period 2000–2008 and over 25 sites showed a large range of seasonal patterns. Performances were discussed with emphasis on the balance achieved by each method between accuracy and roughness depending on the fraction of missing observations and the length of the gaps. Results demonstrate that the EMD, LPF and AGF methods were failing because of a significant fraction of gaps (more than 20%), while ICSSA, Whit and SGF were always providing estimates for dates with missing data. TSGF (Clim) was able to fill more than 50% of the gaps for sites with more than 60% (80%) fraction of gaps. However, investigation of the accuracy of the reconstructed values shows that it degrades rapidly for sites with more than 20% missing data, particularly for ICSSA, Whit and SGF. In these conditions, TSGF provides the best performances that are significantly better than the simple Clim for gaps shorter than about 100 days. The roughness of the reconstructed temporal profiles shows large differences between the various methods, with a decrease of the roughness with the fraction of missing data, except for ICSSA. TSGF provides the smoothest temporal profiles for sites with a % gap > 30%. Conversely, ICSSA, LPF, Whit, AGF and Clim provide smoother profiles than TSGF for sites with a % gap < 30%. Impact of the accuracy and smoothness of the reconstructed time series were evaluated on the timing of phenological stages. The dates of start, maximum and end of the season are estimated with an accuracy of about 10 days for the sites with a % gap < 10% and increases rapidly with the % gap. TSGF provides more accurate estimates of phenological timing up to a % gap < 60%.Keywords
Funding Information
- European Commission (218795)
This publication has 64 references indexed in Scilit:
- Inter-comparison of four models for smoothing satellite sensor time-series data to estimate vegetation phenologyRemote Sensing of Environment, 2012
- A generalized regression-based model for forecasting winter wheat yields in Kansas and Ukraine using MODIS dataRemote Sensing of Environment, 2010
- Evaluating the Consistency of the 1982–1999 NDVI Trends in the Iberian Peninsula across Four Time-series Derived from the AVHRR Sensor: LTDR, GIMMS, FASIR, and PAL-IISensors, 2010
- LAI, fAPAR and fCover CYCLOPES global products derived from VEGETATION: Part 1: Principles of the algorithmRemote Sensing of Environment, 2007
- Neural network estimation of LAI, fAPAR, fCover and LAI×Cab, from top of canopy MERIS reflectance data: Principles and validationRemote Sensing of Environment, 2006
- Evaluation of the representativeness of networks of sites for the global validation and intercomparison of land biophysical products: proposition of the CEOS-BELMANIPIEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 2006
- Normalization of the directional effects in NOAA–AVHRR reflectance measurements for an improved monitoring of vegetation cyclesRemote Sensing of Environment, 2006
- Improved monitoring of vegetation dynamics at very high latitudes: A new method using MODIS NDVIRemote Sensing of Environment, 2006
- Comparison of regression and geostatistical methods for mapping Leaf Area Index (LAI) with Landsat ETM+ data over a boreal forestRemote Sensing of Environment, 2005
- Mapping isogrowth zones on continental scale using temporal Fourier analysis of AVHRR-NDVI dataInternational Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 1999