Changes in global vegetation activity and its driving factors during 1982–2013

Zhao, Lin; Dai, Aiguo; Dong, Bo

doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2017.11.013

Title: Changes in global vegetation activity and its driving factors during 1982–2013

Journal Article · Tue Nov 14 00:00:00 EST 2017 · Agricultural and Forest Meteorology

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2017.11.013· OSTI ID:1537935

Zhao, Lin ^[1]; Dai, Aiguo ^[2]; Dong, Bo ^[2]

Wuhan University (China)
State University of New York (SUNY), Albany, NY (United States)

Vegetation activity plays a crucial role in the global carbon cycle and climate. Many studies have examined recent changes in vegetation growth and the associated local climatic drivers. They revealed a global greening trend during the recent decades. However, few studies have analyzed how remote oceanic conditions affect land vegetation growth through atmospheric teleconnection, and the causes of the recent greening needs further investigation. Here in this study, we investigate the spatio-temporal variations (including trends) of vegetation activity using satellite data of growing-season normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI_gs), and examine their relationship to local and remote climate oscillations and external anthropogenic forcing by statistical means. As expected, there is an increasing trend in global-mean NDVI_gs from 1982–2013, with significant greening over Europe and many other land areas. NDVI_gs is temperature-limited at northern high-latitudes, but water-limited in arid and semi-arid regions, and radiation-limited in the Amazon and eastern and southern Asia. Globally, El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the leading climatic driver of interannual variability of NDVI_gs, especially over southern and eastern Africa, eastern Australia, northeastern Asia, and northern South America. Consistent with previous modeling studies, a regression-based attribution analysis suggests that historical anthropogenic forcing (mainly increases in greenhouse gases) explains about two thirds of the NDVI_gs trend from 1982 to 2013, with the rest coming mainly from the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO). Contributions to the recent NDVI_gs trend from ENSO and Pacific decadal variability and Artctic Oscillation appear to be small.

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Research Organization:: State Univ. of New York (SUNY), Albany, NY (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Science Foundation (NSF); National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); China Postdoctoral Science Foundation

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0012602; AGS-1353740; NA15OAR4310086; 41301586; 2014T70731

OSTI ID:: 1537935

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1549161

Journal Information:: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Vol. 249, Issue C; ISSN 0168-1923

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 132 works

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