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Phenology is a sensitive and critical feature of vegetation and is a good indicator for climate change studies. The global inventory modelling and mapping studies (GIMMS) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) has been the most widely used data source for monitoring of the vegetation dynamics over large geographical areas in the past two decades. With the release of the third version of the NDVI (GIMMS NDVI3g) recently, it is important to compare the NDVI3g data with those of the previous version (NDVIg) to link existing studies with future applications of the NDVI3g in monitoring vegetation phenology. In this study, the three most popular satellite start of vegetation growing season (SOS) extraction methods were used, and the differences between SOSg and SOS3g arising from the methods were explored. The amplitude and the peak values of the NDVI3g are higher than those of the NDVIg curve, which indicated that the SOS derived from the NDVIg (SOSg) was significantly later than that derived from the NDVI3g (SOS3g) based on all the methods, for the whole northern hemisphere. In addition, SOSg and SOS3g both showed an advancing trend during 1982–2006, but that trend was more significant with SOSg than with SOS3g in the results from all three methods. In summary, the difference between SOSg and SOS3g (in the multi-year mean SOS, SOS change slope and the turning point in the time series) varied among the methods and was partly related to latitude. For the multi-year mean SOS, the difference increased with latitude intervals in the low latitudes (0–30°N) and decreased in the mid- and high-latitude intervals. The GIMMS NDVI3g data-sets seemed more sensitive than the GIMMS NDVIg in detecting information about the ground, and the SOS3g data were better correlated both with thein situobservations and the SOS derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer NDVI. For the northern hemisphere, previous satellite measures (SOS derived from GIMMS NDVIg) may have overestimated the advancing trend of the SOS by an average of 0.032 d yr–1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]