Mark Friedl

About

Mark Friedl is the William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Mathematics and Science at Boston University’s Earth & Environment department. His research utilizes remote sensing to examine biogeophysical patterns and processes at the Earth’s surface. He is particularly interested in how land cover and ecosystem properties influence surface climate, how land surface biophysics affect the Earth’s weather and climate system, and how human activities are shaping the planet and impacting the global biosphere. Friedl teaches courses including Micrometeorology: Energy & Mass Transfer at Earth’s Surface, Multivariate Analysis for Geographers, and Advanced Topics in Remote Sensing. He holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of California, Santa Barbara, an M.A. in Geography from the same institution, and a B.Sc. (Honors) in Physical Geography from McGill University.

Research topics

• Environmental science
• Remote sensing
• Geology
• Computer Science
• Geography
• Ecology
• Forestry
• Cartography
• Atmospheric sciences
• Biology

Selected publications

• Continental-scale land surface phenology from harmonized Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 imagery

  Remote Sensing of Environment · 2020 · 445 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Dense time series of Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 imagery are creating exciting new opportunities to monitor, map, and characterize temporal dynamics in land surface properties with unprecedented spatial detail and quality. By combining imagery from the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager and the MultiSpectral Instrument on-board Sentinel-2A and -2B, the remote sensing community now has access to moderate (10–30 m) spatial resolution imagery with repeat periods of ~3 days in the mid-latitudes. At the…

  DOI

• Disturbance suppresses the aboveground carbon sink in North American boreal forests

  Nature Climate Change · 2021 · 155 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Need and vision for global medium-resolution Landsat and Sentinel-2 data products

  Remote Sensing of Environment · 2023-11-27 · 142 citations

  articleOpen access

  Global changes in climate and land use are threatening natural ecosystems, biodiversity, and the ecosystem services people rely on. This is why it is necessary to track and monitor spatiotemporal change at a level of detail that can inform science, management, and policy development. The current constellation of multiple Landsat and Sentinel-2 satellites collecting imagery at predominantly ≤30-m spatial resolution affords an opportunity for the generation of global medium- resolution products ev…

  PublisherDOI

• Multiscale assessment of land surface phenology from harmonized Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2, PlanetScope, and PhenoCam imagery

  Remote Sensing of Environment · 2021 · 124 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Continuity between NASA MODIS Collection 6.1 and VIIRS Collection 2 land products

  Remote Sensing of Environment · 2024-01-03 · 94 citations

  articleOpen access

  This paper provides a review and summary status of the research underway by the NASA Terra Aqua Suomi-NPP Land Discipline Team to provide continuity of global land data products from the NASA Moderate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) to the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). The two MODIS instruments on the NASA Earth Observing System Terra (morning overpass) and Aqua (afternoon overpass) platforms have provided more than twenty years of data. The peer-reviewed land p…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Continental-Scale Monitoring, Modeling and Forecasting of Phenological Responses to Climate Change

  NSF · $276k · 2011–2017

• Collaborative Proposal: MSB-FRA: Improved Understanding of Feedbacks between Ecosystem Phenology and the Weather-Environment Nexus at Local-to-Continental Scales

  NSF · $396k · 2017–2023

• Collaborative Research: WSC-Category 3: Crops, climate, canals, and the cryosphere in Asia - changing water resources around the Earth's third pole

  NSF · $224k · 2010–2015

Frequent coauthors

• Crystal Schaaf

  60 shared

• Alan H. Strahler

  Boston University

  55 shared

• Andrew D. Richardson

  Northern Arizona University

  49 shared

• Xiaoyang Zhang

  Zhejiang University of Technology

  45 shared

• Steve Frolking

  University of New Hampshire

  44 shared

• Damien Sulla‐Menashe

  Indigo Information Services (United States)

  40 shared

• Koen Hufkens

  Interactions Sol Plante Atmosphère

  37 shared

• Curtis E. Woodcock

  35 shared

Labs

• Land Cover & Surface Climate GroupPI

Education

• Ph.D., Geography

  University of California Santa Barbara

  1993

• B.Sc., Geography

  McGill University

  1985

Similar researchers at Boston University

• Benjamin Sovacoolh-143
• Ranga Mynenih-130