Upcoming changes to the AOP data product catalog

The Airborne Remote Sensing Data Quality Technical Working Group recently made a series of recommendations for changes to the NEON AOP data product catalog. These changes included data product name changes, as well as suspension of a subset of AOP products.

Naming changes are implemented to better reflect the algorithms used to calculate the affected data products. The suspension of data products is a result of an assessment of currently implemented algorithms, which were deemed to provide data of insufficient quality for the sensor, scale and site conditions associated with NEON AOP collections. Suspended products are remaining as NEON data products in the catalog; however, the data will be removed from the data portal and will only be re-generated for the entire AOP archive when an improved algorithm that produces high quality results is available. The algorithms used to calculate the suspended data products will be maintained in the associated ATBDs (Algorithm Theoretical Basis Documents) for historical context. The following list summarizes the changes that will be applied:

1. The Canopy Water Content data products (DP2.30019.001 and DP3.30019.001) will be renamed to Canopy Water Indices,
2. Canopy Xanthophyll Cycle data products (DP2.30020.001 and DP3.30020.001) will be renamed to Photochemical Reflectance Index (PRI) and included as part of the Vegetation Indices data product (DP2.30026.001, DP3.30026.001), and
3. Canopy Nitrogen (DP2.30018.001, DP3.30018.001), Canopy Lignin (DP2.0022.001, DP3.30022.001), Canopy Xanthophyll (DP2.30020.001 and DP3.30020.001) and Total Biomass – Spectrometer (DP2.30016.001, DP3.30016.001) will be suspended and removed from the data portal.

Naming updates and data product suspensions to the AOP data products will completed by December 31st 2020. Any inquiries regarding this notification may be submitted through the Contact Us form.