Title: Data associated with Boone (2020) "Hierarchical global plant biophysical regions as potential analysis units” Abstract: Regional and global vegetation simulations can be problematic when analysis units to which parameters are assigned do not align with plant productivity and phenology. Having a suite of pre-defined biophysical regions at a variety of scales that correspond to differences in plant productivity and phenology would allow analysts to select a set of analysis units at the scale needed. In other cases, environmental or social responses may be hypothesized to be related to differences in plant dynamics. One may compare the discrimination in such data that biophysical regions at difference scales provide to determine which best distinguishes the responses in question, such that like responses fall within the same regions to the degree possible. If those relationships are significant, the responses may then be extrapolated based on the biophysical regions. I defined hierarchical biophysical regions based on plant productivity and phenology by clustering global 0.083° Normalized Difference Vegetation Indices over a 10-year period. Agglomerative average-linkage distances based on squared error between clusters was conducted using an iterative sampling approach to merge more than 2 million clusters into fewer and fewer clusters based on NDVI greenness profiles comprised of 240 values over 10 yrs, until all cells were in a single cluster. Greater and greater differences in greenness profiles were ignored at higher levels of the hierarchy. Using a difference increment of 0.1, 253 non-duplicative sets of clusters were created, and 107 of those were included in animations that may be used to explore differences in global plant dynamics. Differences in clusters were quantified based on comparing the focal set of cluster results with 10 other cluster sets. Analysts may use the hierarchical clusters to improve the alignment of their parameter sets that inform plant growth and other dynamics with real-world plant dynamics. Contact: Randall Boone, randall.boone@colostate.edu Recommended data citation: Boone, R.B. (2020). Data associated with Boone (2020) "Hierarchical global plant biophysical regions as potential analysis units” Colorado State University. Libraries. http://dx.doi.org/10.25675/10217/201109 Associated publication: Boone, R.B. In press. Hierarchical global plant biophysical regions as potential analysis units. Global Change Biology Spatial coverage: Global Temporal coverage: 2006 to 2015 File information: This dataset includes five types of data, stored in five separate .7z files, a freely-available (www.7-zip.org) compression tool: 1) An animation of hierarchical biophysical clusters of the globe, from hierarchical distances 0 to 43; 2) An animation of hierarchical biophysical clusters of the globe, from hierarchical distances 0 to 43 and back to 0; 3) Individual hierarchical biophysical clusters of the globe, in image format (PNG), where, for example, B0_Map_003p200.png is the image at a distance of 3.2 NDVI units; 4) Individual hierarchical biophysical clusters of the globe, in GRID ASCII format, where, for example, B0_Map_003p200.asc is the map at a distance of 3.2 NDVI units; 5) Supplemental raw data for hierarchical biophysical clusters of the globe at a high distance resolution (0.01); See below for more details. 1) Hierarchical biophysical clusters of the globe, from hierarchical distance 0 to 43 (Hierarchical_Biophysical_Clusters_4K_UHD_0_to_43.7z) Description: The animation shows global clusters of phenology and productivity at hierarchical distances spanning from 0 to 43 NDVI units. The image is 4K resolution and uncompressed. 2) Hierarchical biophysical clusters of the globe, from hierarchical distance 0 to 43 and back to 0 (Hierarchical_Biophysical_Clusters_4k_UHD_0_to_43_to_0.7z) Description: The animation shows the same clusters increasing from 0 to 43 NDVI units and back to 0 NDVI units. This animation may be set to repeat. The image is 4K resolution and uncompressed. 3) Individual hierarchical biophysical clusters of the globe, as images (B0_PNGs_No_Dups.7z) Description: Individual hierarchical cluster images for the globe at different NDVI distances. The images are named for their NDVI distance, with p representing "point." For example, B0_Map_003p200.png is the image at a distance of 3.2 NDVI units. These are PNG images, a common image format. The images show clusters in a geographic coordinate system with datum WGS 1984 and global at 1/12th degree resolution (0.083334 degree cellsize). 4) Individual hierarchical biophysical clusters of the globe, in GRID ASCII format (B0_ASCs_No_Dups.7z) Description: Individual hierarchical cluster layers for the globe at different NDVI distances. The images are named for their NDVI distance, with p representing "point." For example, B0_Map_003p200.png is the image at a distance of 3.2 NDVI units. These are in GRID ASCII format, compressed with the 7z tool. The GIS layers are in a geographic coordinate system with datum WGS 1984 and global at 1/12th degree resolution (0.083334 degree cellsize). Note: Files updated on 7/17/20. Please refer to B0_ASCs_No_Dups_20200717_update.7z for the correct data. 5) Supplemental raw data for hierarchical biophysical clusters of the globe at a high distance resolution (Hierarchical_Clusters_at_0p01_Resolution_RAW_DATA.7z) Description: These are raw output files from clustering routines that show a row identifier in column 1, a pixel identifying number in the second column, and the cluster number to which that cluster was collapsed in the third column. Pixel identifiers and their locations in X-Y space are provided in NDVI_XY.TXT, with the identifier in column 1, X position in column 2, and Y position in column 3. Column 4 gives an initial color identifier for the pixel, which may be ignored by the analyst. The images are named for their NDVI distance, with p representing "point." For example, A0_Map_003p210.png is the image at a distance of 3.21 NDVI units. These files are not intended for general use and are not portrayed in Boone (In press). Prior to using the 0.1 resolution distances featured in that manuscript, many months were put to creating clusters at 0.01 resolution. The raw output files from that work are provided here. A programmer may pass through one of the cluster result files and look-up the location of the pixel in NDVI_XY.TXT, and create an image or GIS surface for use in analyses. This file is a compressed version of other compressed files. The compression tool used is freely available and called 7-Zip (www.7-zip.org). The files may be uncompressed to yield individual 7z files, which may in turn be uncompressed.