Changes in global vegetation activity and its driving factors during 1982–2013
Abstract
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 (NDVIgs), 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 NDVIgs from 1982–2013, with significant greening over Europe and many other land areas. NDVIgs 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 NDVIgs, 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 aboutmore »
- Authors:
-
- Wuhan University (China)
- State University of New York (SUNY), Albany, NY (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- State Univ. of New York (SUNY), Albany, NY (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- 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
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1537935
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1549161
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0012602; AGS-1353740; NA15OAR4310086; 41301586; 2014T70731
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 249; Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 0168-1923
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; NDVI; vegetation activity; climatic oscillation; external forcing; trend attribution
Citation Formats
Zhao, Lin, Dai, Aiguo, and Dong, Bo. Changes in global vegetation activity and its driving factors during 1982–2013. United States: N. p., 2017.
Web. doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2017.11.013.
Zhao, Lin, Dai, Aiguo, & Dong, Bo. Changes in global vegetation activity and its driving factors during 1982–2013. United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2017.11.013
Zhao, Lin, Dai, Aiguo, and Dong, Bo. Tue .
"Changes in global vegetation activity and its driving factors during 1982–2013". United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2017.11.013. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1537935.
@article{osti_1537935,
title = {Changes in global vegetation activity and its driving factors during 1982–2013},
author = {Zhao, Lin and Dai, Aiguo and Dong, Bo},
abstractNote = {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 (NDVIgs), 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 NDVIgs from 1982–2013, with significant greening over Europe and many other land areas. NDVIgs 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 NDVIgs, 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 NDVIgs trend from 1982 to 2013, with the rest coming mainly from the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO). Contributions to the recent NDVIgs trend from ENSO and Pacific decadal variability and Artctic Oscillation appear to be small.},
doi = {10.1016/j.agrformet.2017.11.013},
journal = {Agricultural and Forest Meteorology},
number = C,
volume = 249,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Nov 14 00:00:00 EST 2017},
month = {Tue Nov 14 00:00:00 EST 2017}
}
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