scholarly journals Trends and land surface phenological responses to climate variability in the Argentina Pampas

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 581-602
Author(s):  
B. Lara ◽  
M. Gandini ◽  
P. Gantes ◽  
S.D. Matteucci

Understanding the interaction between land surface and atmosphere processes is fundamental for predicting the effects of future climate change on ecosystem functioning and carbon dynamics. The objectives of this work were to analyze the trends in land surface phenology (LSP) metrics from remote sensing data, and to reveal their relationship with precipitation and ENSO phenomenon in the Argentina Pampas. Using a time series of MODIS Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data from 2000 to 2014, the start of the growing season (SOS), the annual integral of NDVI (i-NDVI, linear estimator of annual productivity), the timing of the annual maximum NDVI (t-MAX) and the annual relative range of NDVI (RREL, estimator of seasonality) were obtained for the Argentina Pampas. Then, spatial and temporal relationships with the Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) and precipitation were analyzed. Results showed a negative trend in annual productivity over a 53.6% of the study area associated to natural and semi-natural grassland under cattle grazing, whereas a 40.3% of Argentina Pampas showed a significant positive trend in seasonality of carbon gains. The study also reveals that climate variability has a significant impact on land surface phenology in Argentina Pampas, although the impact is heterogeneous. SOS and t-MAX showed a significant negative correlation with the precipitation indicating an earlier occurrence. 23.6% and 28.4% of the study area showed a positive correlation of the annual productivity with MEI and precipitation, respectively, associated to rangelands (in the first case) and to both rangeland and croplands, in the second case. Climate variability did not explain the seasonal variability of phenology. The relationships found between LSP metrics and climate variability could be important for implementation of strategies for natural resource management.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iman Rousta ◽  
Haraldur Ólafsson

<p>The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) has been retrieved and analyzed for Iceland.  There are only limited trends in the total integrated NDVI in the period 2001 - 2018.  However, there is a positive trend in recent decades in the occurrence of signal corresponding to woodland and forests.   Locally, there may however be great changes; some small deserts have turned green and systematic planting of trees in certain regions is well detectable. The impact, and the driver of these changes are discussed in the context of climate and the implication for thermally driven weather systems and local weather forecasting is explained. </p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2060
Author(s):  
Trylee Nyasha Matongera ◽  
Onisimo Mutanga ◽  
Mbulisi Sibanda ◽  
John Odindi

Land surface phenology (LSP) has been extensively explored from global archives of satellite observations to track and monitor the seasonality of rangeland ecosystems in response to climate change. Long term monitoring of LSP provides large potential for the evaluation of interactions and feedbacks between climate and vegetation. With a special focus on the rangeland ecosystems, the paper reviews the progress, challenges and emerging opportunities in LSP while identifying possible gaps that could be explored in future. Specifically, the paper traces the evolution of satellite sensors and interrogates their properties as well as the associated indices and algorithms in estimating and monitoring LSP in productive rangelands. Findings from the literature revealed that the spectral characteristics of the early satellite sensors such as Landsat, AVHRR and MODIS played a critical role in the development of spectral vegetation indices that have been widely used in LSP applications. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) pioneered LSP investigations, and most other spectral vegetation indices were primarily developed to address the weaknesses and shortcomings of the NDVI. New indices continue to be developed based on recent sensors such as Sentinel-2 that are characterized by unique spectral signatures and fine spatial resolutions, and their successful usage is catalyzed with the development of cutting-edge algorithms for modeling the LSP profiles. In this regard, the paper has documented several LSP algorithms that are designed to provide data smoothing, gap filling and LSP metrics retrieval methods in a single environment. In the future, the development of machine learning algorithms that can effectively model and characterize the phenological cycles of vegetation would help to unlock the value of LSP information in the rangeland monitoring and management process. Precisely, deep learning presents an opportunity to further develop robust software packages such as the decomposition and analysis of time series (DATimeS) with the abundance of data processing tools and techniques that can be used to better characterize the phenological cycles of vegetation in rangeland ecosystems.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 323
Author(s):  
Liang Chen ◽  
Xuelei Wang ◽  
Xiaobin Cai ◽  
Chao Yang ◽  
Xiaorong Lu

Rapid urbanization greatly alters land surface vegetation cover and heat distribution, leading to the development of the urban heat island (UHI) effect and seriously affecting the healthy development of cities and the comfort of living. As an indicator of urban health and livability, monitoring the distribution of land surface temperature (LST) and discovering its main impacting factors are receiving increasing attention in the effort to develop cities more sustainably. In this study, we analyzed the spatial distribution patterns of LST of the city of Wuhan, China, from 2013 to 2019. We detected hot and cold poles in four seasons through clustering and outlier analysis (based on Anselin local Moran’s I) of LST. Furthermore, we introduced the geographical detector model to quantify the impact of six physical and socio-economic factors, including the digital elevation model (DEM), index-based built-up index (IBI), modified normalized difference water index (MNDWI), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), population, and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on the LST distribution of Wuhan. Finally, to identify the influence of land cover on temperature, the LST of croplands, woodlands, grasslands, and built-up areas was analyzed. The results showed that low temperatures are mainly distributed over water and woodland areas, followed by grasslands; high temperatures are mainly concentrated over built-up areas. The maximum temperature difference between land covers occurs in spring and summer, while this difference can be ignored in winter. MNDWI, IBI, and NDVI are the key driving factors of the thermal values change in Wuhan, especially of their interaction. We found that the temperature of water area and urban green space (woodlands and grasslands) tends to be 5.4 °C and 2.6 °C lower than that of built-up areas. Our research results can contribute to the urban planning and urban greening of Wuhan and promote the healthy and sustainable development of the city.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 7685-7719 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Broich ◽  
A. Huete ◽  
M. G. Tulbure ◽  
X. Ma ◽  
Q. Xin ◽  
...  

Abstract. Land surface phenological cycles of vegetation greening and browning are influenced by variability in climatic forcing. Quantitative information on phenological cycles and their variability is important for agricultural applications, wildfire fuel accumulation, land management, land surface modeling, and climate change studies. Most phenology studies have focused on temperature-driven Northern Hemisphere systems, where phenology shows annually reoccurring patterns. Yet, precipitation-driven non-annual phenology of arid and semi-arid systems (i.e. drylands) received much less attention, despite the fact that they cover more than 30% of the global land surface. Here we focused on Australia, the driest inhabited continent with one of the most variable rainfall climates in the world and vast areas of dryland systems. Detailed and internally consistent studies investigating phenological cycles and their response to climate variability across the entire continent designed specifically for Australian dryland conditions are missing. To fill this knowledge gap and to advance phenological research, we used existing methods more effectively to study geographic and climate-driven variability in phenology over Australia. We linked derived phenological metrics with rainfall and the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI). We based our analysis on Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) data from the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) from 2000 to 2013, which included extreme drought and wet years. We conducted a continent-wide investigation of the link between phenology and climate variability and a more detailed investigation over the Murray–Darling Basin (MDB), the primary agricultural area and largest river catchment of Australia. Results showed high inter- and intra-annual variability in phenological cycles. Phenological cycle peaks occurred not only during the austral summer but at any time of the year, and their timing varied by more than a month in the interior of the continent. The phenological cycle peak magnitude and integrated greenness were most significantly correlated with monthly SOI within the preceding 12 months. Correlation patterns occurred primarily over north-eastern Australia and within the MDB predominantly over natural land cover and particularly in floodplain and wetland areas. Integrated greenness of the phenological cycles (surrogate of productivity) showed positive anomalies of more than two standard deviations over most of eastern Australia in 2009–2010, which coincided with the transition between the El Niño induced decadal droughts to flooding caused by La Niña. The quantified spatial-temporal variability in phenology across Australia in response to climate variability presented here provides important information for land management and climate change studies and applications.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (21) ◽  
pp. 2513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Li ◽  
Fang Huang ◽  
Lijie Qin ◽  
Hang Qi ◽  
Ning Sun

The Songnen Plain (SNP) is an important grain production base, and is designated as an ecological red-line as a protected area in China. Natural ecosystems such as the ecological protection barrier play an important role in maintaining the productivity and sustainability of farmland. Carbon use efficiency (CUE), defined as the ratio of net primary productivity (NPP) to gross primary productivity (GPP), represents the ecosystem capacity of transferring carbon from the atmosphere to terrestrial biomass. The understanding of the CUE of natural ecosystems in protected farmland areas is vital to predicting the impact of global change and human disturbances on carbon budgets and evaluating ecosystem functions. To date, the changes in CUE at different time scales and their relationships with climatic factors have yet to be fully understood. CUE and the response to land surface phenology are also deserving attention. In this study, variations in ecosystem CUE in the SNP during 2001–2015 were investigated using Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) GPP and NPP data products estimated using the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford approach (CASA) model. The relationships between CUE and phenological and climate factors were explored. The results showed that ecosystem CUE fluctuated over time in the SNP. The lowest and highest CUE values mainly occurred in May and October, respectively. At seasonal scale, average CUE followed a descending order of Autumn > Summer > Spring. The CUE of mixed forest was greater than that of other ecosystems at both monthly and seasonal scales. Land surface phenology plays an important role in the regulation of CUE. The earlier start (SOS), the later end (EOS) and longer length (LOS) of the growing season would contribute increasing of CUE. Precipitation and temperature affected CUE positively in most areas of the SNP. These findings help explain the CUE of natural ecosystems in the protected farmland areas and improve our understanding of ecosystem carbon allocation dynamics in temperate semi-humid to semi-arid transitional region under climate and phenological fluctuations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt B. Waldman ◽  
Noemi Vergopolan ◽  
Shahzeen Z. Attari ◽  
Justin Sheffield ◽  
Lyndon D. Estes ◽  
...  

Abstract Given the varying manifestations of climate change over time and the influence of climate perceptions on adaptation, it is important to understand whether farmer perceptions match patterns of environmental change from observational data. We use a combination of social and environmental data to understand farmer perceptions related to rainy season onset. Household surveys were conducted with 1171 farmers across Zambia at the end of the 2015/16 growing season eliciting their perceptions of historic changes in rainy season onset and their heuristics about when rain onset occurs. We compare farmers’ perceptions with satellite-gauge-derived rainfall data from the Climate Hazards Group Infrared Precipitation with Station dataset and hyper-resolution soil moisture estimates from the HydroBlocks land surface model. We find evidence of a cognitive bias, where farmers perceive the rains to be arriving later, although the physical data do not wholly support this. We also find that farmers’ heuristics about rainy season onset influence maize planting dates, a key determinant of maize yield and food security in sub-Saharan Africa. Our findings suggest that policy makers should focus more on current climate variability than future climate change.


2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (18) ◽  
pp. 4939-4952 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dietmar Dommenget

Abstract A characteristic feature of global warming is the land–sea contrast, with stronger warming over land than over oceans. Recent studies find that this land–sea contrast also exists in equilibrium global change scenarios, and it is caused by differences in the availability of surface moisture over land and oceans. In this study it is illustrated that this land–sea contrast exists also on interannual time scales and that the ocean–land interaction is strongly asymmetric. The land surface temperature is more sensitive to the oceans than the oceans are to the land surface temperature, which is related to the processes causing the land–sea contrast in global warming scenarios. It suggests that the ocean’s natural variability and change is leading to variability and change with enhanced magnitudes over the continents, causing much of the longer-time-scale (decadal) global-scale continental climate variability. Model simulations illustrate that continental warming due to anthropogenic forcing (e.g., the warming at the end of the last century or future climate change scenarios) is mostly (80%–90%) indirectly forced by the contemporaneous ocean warming, not directly by local radiative forcing.


2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 2073-2084 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Zabel ◽  
T. B. Hank ◽  
W. Mauser

Abstract. Regionalization of physical land surface models requires the supply of detailed land cover information. Numerous global and regional land cover maps already exist but generally, they do not resolve arable land into different crop types. However, arable land comprises a huge variety of different crops with characteristic phenological behaviour, demonstrated in this paper with Leaf Area Index (LAI) measurements exemplarily for maize and winter wheat. This affects the mass and energy fluxes on the land surface and thus its hydrology. The objective of this study is the generation of a land cover map for central Europe based on CORINE Land Cover (CLC) 2000, merged with CORINE Switzerland, but distinguishing different crop types. Accordingly, an approach was developed, subdividing the land cover class arable land into the regionally most relevant subclasses for central Europe using multiseasonal MERIS Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data. The satellite data were used for the separation of spring and summer crops due to their different phenological behaviour. Subsequently, the generated phenological classes were subdivided following statistical data from EUROSTAT. This database was analysed concerning the acreage of different crop types. The impact of the improved land use/cover map on evapotranspiration was modelled exemplarily for the Upper Danube catchment with the hydrological model PROMET. Simulations based on the newly developed land cover approach showed a more detailed evapotranspiration pattern compared to model results using the traditional CLC map, which is ignorant of most arable subdivisions. Due to the improved temporal behaviour and spatial allocation of evapotranspiration processes in the new land cover approach, the simulated water balance more closely matches the measured gauge.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (20) ◽  
pp. 4126
Author(s):  
Yang Li ◽  
Ziti Jiao ◽  
Kaiguang Zhao ◽  
Yadong Dong ◽  
Yuyu Zhou ◽  
...  

Vegetation indices are widely used to derive land surface phenology (LSP). However, due to inconsistent illumination geometries, reflectance varies with solar zenith angles (SZA), which in turn affects the vegetation indices, and thus the derived LSP. To examine the SZA effect on LSP, the MODIS bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) product and a BRDF model were employed to derive LSPs under several constant SZAs (i.e., 0°, 15°, 30°, 45°, and 60°) in the Harvard Forest, Massachusetts, USA. The LSPs derived under varying SZAs from the MODIS nadir BRDF-adjusted reflectance (NBAR) and MODIS vegetation index products were used as baselines. The results show that with increasing SZA, NDVI increases but EVI decreases. The magnitude of SZA-induced NDVI/EVI changes suggests that EVI is more sensitive to varying SZAs than NDVI. NDVI and EVI are comparable in deriving the start of season (SOS), but EVI is more accurate when deriving the end of season (EOS). Specifically, NDVI/EVI-derived SOSs are relatively close to those derived from ground measurements, with an absolute mean difference of 8.01 days for NDVI-derived SOSs and 9.07 days for EVI-derived SOSs over ten years. However, a considerable lag exists for EOSs derived from vegetation indices, especially from the NDVI time series, with an absolute mean difference of 14.67 days relative to that derived from ground measurements. The SOSs derived from NDVI time series are generally earlier, while those from EVI time series are delayed. In contrast, the EOSs derived from NDVI time series are delayed; those derived from the simulated EVI time series under a fixed illumination geometry are also delayed, but those derived from the products with varying illumination geometries (i.e., MODIS NBAR product and MODIS vegetation index product) are advanced. LSPs derived from varying illumination geometries could lead to a difference spanning from a few days to a month in this case study, which highlights the importance of normalizing the illumination geometry when deriving LSP from NDVI/EVI time series.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 46
Author(s):  
Xincheng Zheng ◽  
Zeyao Zou ◽  
Chongmin Xu ◽  
Sen Lin ◽  
Zhilong Wu ◽  
...  

Although many prior efforts found that road networks significantly affect landscape fragmentation, the spatially heterogeneous effects of road networks on urban ecoenvironments remain poorly understood. A new remote-sensing-based ecological index (RSEI) is proposed to calculate the ecoenvironmental quality, and a local model (geographically weighted regression, GWR) was applied to explore the spatial variations in the relationship between kernel density of roads (KDR) and ecoenvironmental quality and understand the coupling mechanism of road networks and ecoenvironments. The average effect of KDR on the variables of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), land surface moisture (LSM), and RSEI was negative, while it was positively associated with the soil index (SI), normalized differential build-up and bare soil index (NDBSI), index-based built-up index (IBI), and land surface temperature (LST). This study shows that rivers and the landscape pattern along rivers exacerbate the impact of road networks on urban ecoenvironments. Moreover, spatial variation in the relationship between road network and ecoenvironment is mainly controlled by the relationship of the road network with vegetation and bare soil. This research can help in better understanding the diversified relationships between road networks and ecoenvironments and offers guidance for urban planners to avoid or mitigate the negative impacts of roads on urban ecoenvironments.


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