George C Hurtt¹, Lei Ma², John David Armston³, J Bryan Blair⁴, Elliott T Campbell⁵, Louise P Chini⁶, Ralph Dubayah³, Laura Duncanson⁷, Michelle A Hofton⁸, Rachel L Lamb⁹, Scott B Luthcke¹⁰, Quan Shen¹, Jacob Pederson¹¹ and Hao Tang¹², (1)University of Maryland College Park, Department of Geographical Sciences, College Park, MD, United States, (2)University of Maryland, College Park, Geographical sciences, College Park, United States, (3)University of Maryland, Department of Geographical Sciences, College Park, United States, (4)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, United States, (5)Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Office of Science and Stewardship, Annapolis, United States, (6)University of Maryland, Department of Geographical Sciences, College Park, MD, United States, (7)University of Maryland College Park, College Park, MD, United States, (8)Univ Maryland College Park, College Park, United States, (9)University of Maryland College Park, Department of Geographical Sciences, College Park, United States, (10)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Geodesy and Geophysics Laboratory, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (11)EMNRD, Sante Fe, United States, (12)National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore