Landscape-scale Characterization of Arctic Tundra Vegetation Composition, Structure, and Function with a Multi-sensor Unoccupied Aerial System: Supporting Data.

Airborne remote sensing data collected using the Brookhaven National Laboratory’s (BNL) heavy-lift unoccupied aerial system (UAS) octocopter platform – the Osprey – operated by the Terrestrial Ecosystem Science and Technology (TEST) group (bnl.gov/testgroup). Data was collected from three flights over the Teller, Kougarok, and Council field sites on 22, 25, and 23 July 2018, respectively.  The Osprey is a multi-sensor UAS platform that simultaneously measures very high spatial resolution optical red/green/blue (RGB) and thermal infrared (TIR) surface “skin” temperature imagery, as well as surface reflectance at 1 nm intervals in the visible to near-infrared spectral range from ~350 - 1000 nm measured at regular intervals along each flight path.

Derived image products include ortho-mosaiced RGB and TIR images, an RGB-based digital surface model (DSM) using the structure from motion (SfM) technique, digital terrain model (DTM), and a canopy height model (CHM). In addition, a VNIR surface reflectance file is provided for the trigger locations collected during each flight campaign. Ancillary aircraft data, flight mission parameters, and general flight conditions provided by the onboard flight and data collection computers are also included.The Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments: Arctic (NGEE Arctic), a research effort to reduce uncertainty in Earth System Models by developing a predictive understanding of carbon-rich Arctic ecosystems and feedbacks to climate.