Understanding water control on vegetation growth in Eurasia from GRACE-derived terrestrial water storage

Geruo A, UCI, geruoa@uci.edu
Isabella Velicogna, UCI, isabella@uci.edu (Presenter)
John S Kimball, University of Montana, johnk@ntsg.umt.edu
Yongwook Kim, University of Montana, youngwook.kim@ntsg.umt.edu

We use GRACE-derived terrestrial water storage (TWS) and ERA-interim air temperature (T), as proxies for water supply and temperature controls on vegetation productivity, represented by MODIS satellite Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), in northern Eurasia during 2002-2011. Vegetation growth shows significant spatial and temporal variability associated with varying moisture and temperature controls. The largest NDVI gains occur over boreal forests associated with warming and wetting. The largest losses occur over grasslands in the southwestern Ob associated with regional drying and a dominant TWS constraint despite the recent cooling. Over grasslands and temperate forests in Southeast Ob and South Yenisei, wetting trends relax TWS constraints which in combination with recent cooling lead to dominant T control on NDVI. Overall NDVI correlates with TWS and T over 36% and 52% of the domain, respectively. These results show that water supply plays a major role in modulating Eurasia vegetation response to temperature changes.

Presentation Type:  Poster

Session:  Theme 1: Tracking habitat change through new integrative approaches and products   (Mon 1:30 PM)

Associated Project(s): 

• Kimball, John: Regional Assessment of Arctic Vegetation Productivity and soil respiration environmental controls using MODIS and AMSR-E: A New Approach for Satellite Monitoring of Pan-Arctic Terrestrial Net CO2 Exchange ...details

Poster Location ID: 55