IntroductionThe leaf area index (LAI) data sets were generated by reprocessing the MODIS version 6.1 LAI products.The raw data used include the MODIS LAI Version 6.1 products MCD15A2H (2002.7.4-2021), MOD15A2H (2000.2.18-2002.6.26) (Myneni et al., 2021) and MODIS Land Cover Type product MCD12Q1 (2001-2021) (Friedl and Sulla-Menashe, 2022).The algorithm is mainly based on the two-step integrated method developed by Yuan et al. (2011), and the method of background value calculation was updated.For each year being reprocessed, the nearest 9-year data include itself are used.We use the corresponding year's land cover data for calculating the multi-year average, local per class mean, per class mean and multi-year per class mean (ref. Fig. 4, Yuan et al., 2011).Data descriptionThese monthly LAI data were provided at 0.5-degree resolution covering the period 2000-2021. Data of each year is stored in one NetCDF file, namely lai_monthly_0.5_{YEAR}.nc.For LAI data with more spatial or temporal resolutions, see Land-Atmosphere Interaction …