Python version of Simplified Level 2 Prototype Processor for Retrieving Canopy Biophysical Variables from Sentinel 2 Multispectral Instrument Data

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission is designed to provide data that can be used to globally map widely used vegetation biophysical variables. Currently, estimates of vegetation biophysical variables are not produced operationally by the Sentinel-2 ground segment. Instead, a retrieval algorithm called Simplified Level 2 Prototype Processor (SL2P) has been defined by the European Space Agency. SL2P is a backpropagation neural network trained using a database of globally representative canopy conditions populated using canopy radiative transfer model simulations. SL2P had been implemented within the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing LEAF-Toolbox that relies on Google Earth Engine. This document describes a PYTHON implementation of SL2P (SL2P-PYTHON) that provides identical outputs as the LEFA-Toolbox implementation given the same input Sentiel-2 image.