@article{DechHolzwarthAsametal.2021, author = {Dech, Stefan and Holzwarth, Stefanie and Asam, Sarah and Andresen, Thorsten and Bachmann, Martin and Boettcher, Martin and Dietz, Andreas and Eisfelder, Christina and Frey, Corinne and Gesell, Gerhard and Gessner, Ursula and Hirner, Andreas and Hofmann, Matthias and Kirches, Grit and Klein, Doris and Klein, Igor and Kraus, Tanja and Krause, Detmar and Plank, Simon and Popp, Thomas and Reinermann, Sophie and Reiners, Philipp and Roessler, Sebastian and Ruppert, Thomas and Scherbachenko, Alexander and Vignesh, Ranjitha and Wolfmueller, Meinhard and Zwenzner, Hendrik and Kuenzer, Claudia}, title = {Potential and challenges of harmonizing 40 years of AVHRR data: the TIMELINE experience}, series = {Remote Sensing}, volume = {13}, journal = {Remote Sensing}, number = {18}, issn = {2072-4292}, doi = {10.3390/rs13183618}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-246134}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Earth Observation satellite data allows for the monitoring of the surface of our planet at predefined intervals covering large areas. However, there is only one medium resolution sensor family in orbit that enables an observation time span of 40 and more years at a daily repeat interval. This is the AVHRR sensor family. If we want to investigate the long-term impacts of climate change on our environment, we can only do so based on data that remains available for several decades. If we then want to investigate processes with respect to climate change, we need very high temporal resolution enabling the generation of long-term time series and the derivation of related statistical parameters such as mean, variability, anomalies, and trends. The challenges to generating a well calibrated and harmonized 40-year-long time series based on AVHRR sensor data flown on 14 different platforms are enormous. However, only extremely thorough pre-processing and harmonization ensures that trends found in the data are real trends and not sensor-related (or other) artefacts. The generation of European-wide time series as a basis for the derivation of a multitude of parameters is therefore an extremely challenging task, the details of which are presented in this paper.}, language = {en} }