A Broadband Green-Red Vegetation Index for Monitoring Gross Primary Production Phenology

The chlorophyll/carotenoid index (CCI) is increasingly used for remotely tracking the phenology of photosynthesis. However, CCI is restricted to few satellites incorporating the 531 nm band. This study reveals that the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) broadband green reflectance (band 4) is significantly correlated with this xanthophyll-sensitive narrowband (band 11) ( R 2 = 0.98 , p < 0.001 ), and consequently, the broadband green-red vegetation index GRVI—computed with MODIS band 1 and band 4—is significantly correlated with CCI—computed with MODIS band 1 and band 11 ( R 2 = 0.97 , p < 0.001 ). GRVI and CCI performed similarly in extracting phenological metrics of the dates of the start and end of the season (EOS) when evaluated with gross primary production (GPP) measurements from eddy covariance towers. For EOS extraction of evergreen needleleaf forest, GRVI even overperformed solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence which is seen as a direct proxy of plant photosynthesis. This study opens the door for GPP and photosynthetic phenology monitoring from a wide set of sensors with broadbands in the green and red spectral regions.