Each file contains the average seasonal cycle of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Leaf Area Index (LAI), and absorbed fraction of Photosynthetically Acrive Radiation (fPAR) for a single site.  The naming convention is CC-XXX_GIMMS, where CC-XXX is the unique site code.

The NDVI values for each site were extracted from the pixel containing the tower from the 8 km global maps of GIMMSg NDVI from 1982-2003.  We then converted the time series from 14-day to monthly composites.  These monthly composites were assigned time values corresponding to the middle of each month.  We then calculated the fPAR using the average of the Simple Ratio (SR) and NDVI methods [Sellers et al., 1994, 1996; Schaefer et al., 2002].  The LAI was calculated from the fPAR using the inverse Beer's law [Sellers et al., 1994, 1996].  Lastly, we calculated the average seasonal cycle in NDVI, fPAR, and LAI (the average January, February, etc.).

Schaefer, K, AS Denning, N Suits, J Kaduk, I Baker, S Los, L Prihodko (2002), Effect of climate on interannual variability of terrestrial CO2 fluxes, Global Biogeochem. Cycles, 16(4), doi: 10.1029/2002GB001928.

Sellers, PJ, CJ Tucker, GJ Collatz, SO Los, CO Justice, DA Dazlich, DA Randall (1994), A global 1° by 1° NDVI data set for climate studies, part II: The generation of global fields of terrestrial biophysical parameters from NDVI, Int. J. Remote Sens., 15(17), 3519-3545.

Sellers, PJ, SO Los, CJ Tucker, CO Justice, DA Dazlich, GJ Collatz, DA Randall (1996), A Revised Land Surface Parameterization of GCMs, Part II: The Generation of Global Fields of Terrestrial Biophysical Parameters from Satellite Data, J. Clim., 9(4), 706-737.