Monthly fractional green vegetation cover associated with land cover classes of the conterminous USA

land cover classes developed under the coordination of the International Ge osphere-Biosphere Programme Data and information System (IGBP-DIS) have bee n analyzed for a study area that includes the Conterminous United States an d portions of Mexico and Canada. The 1-km resolution data have been analyze d to produce a gridded data set that includes within each 20-km grid cell: 1) the three most dominant land cover classes, 2) the fractional area assoc iated with each of the three dominant classes, and 3) the fractional area c overed by water. Additionally, the monthly fraction of green vegetation cov er (fgreen) associated with each of the three dominant land cover classes p er grid cell was derived from a 5-year climatology of 1-km resolution NOAA- AVHRR data. The variables derived in this study provide a potential improve ment over the use of monthly fgreen linked to a single land cover class per model grid cell.