Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-9-2011

Abstract

Vegetation in northern high latitudes affects regional and global climate through energy partitioning and carbon storage. Spaceborne observations of vegetation, largely based on the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), suggest decreased productivity during recent decades in many regions of the Eurasian and North American boreal forests. To improve interpretation of NDVI trends over forest regions, we examined the relationship between NDVI from the advanced very high resolution radiometers and tree ring width measurements, a proxy of tree productivity. We collected tree core samples from spruce, pine, and larch at 22 sites in northeast Russia and northwest Canada. Annual growth rings were measured and used to generate site-level ring width index (RWI) chronologies. Correlation analysis was used to assess the association between RWI and summer NDVI from 1982 to 2008, while linear regression was used to examine trends in both measurements. The correlation between NDVI and RWI was highly variable across sites, though consistently positive (r = 0.43, SD = 0.19, n = 27). We observed significant temporal autocorrelation in both NDVI and RWI measurements at sites with evergreen conifers (spruce and pine), though weak autocorrelation at sites with deciduous conifers (larch). No sites exhibited a positive trend in both NDVI and RWI, although five sites showed negative trends in both measurements. While there are technological and physiological limitations to this approach, these findings demonstrate a positive association between NDVI and tree ring measurements, as well as the importance of considering lagged effects when modeling vegetation productivity using satellite data.

Publication Title

Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences

Volume

116

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1029/2010JG001475

Required Publisher's Statement

© 2011 American Geophysical Union. View original article at Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences, at DOI: 10.1029/2010JG001475.

Subjects - Topical (LCSH)

Taigas--Climatic factors--Canada, Western; Taigas--Climatic factors--Russia; Dendroclimatology--Canada, Western; Dendroclimatology--Russia; Vegetation mapping--Canada, Western--Remote sensing; Vegetation mapping--Russia--Remote sensing

Geographic Coverage

Canada, Western; Russia

Genre/Form

articles

Type

Text

Language

English

Format

application/pdf

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