Australia - November 17th, 2009
The vegetated coastal areas of the Australian states of Victoria (below) and New South Wales (above) appear as a green band in this FAPAR image. FAPAR, or Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation, corresponds to the vegetation index of a given area.
In FAPAR images, the color spectrum over land runs from red (1.0), to green, to yellow and white (0.0), while bodies of water appear blue. Here, the most photosynthetically active (red) areas are in the south near Melbourne. Much of this area is within national parks such as Alpine National Park, east of the city, Grampians National Park, west of Melbourne, and Wyperfeld National Park, northwest of the city.
