scholarly journals Periodic Relations between Terrestrial Vegetation and Climate Factors across the Globe

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1805
Author(s):  
Boyi Liang ◽  
Hongyan Liu ◽  
Xiaoqiu Chen ◽  
Xinrong Zhu ◽  
Elizabeth L. Cressey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Time Lag ◽  
Climate Factors ◽  
Vegetation Types ◽  
Terrestrial Vegetation ◽  
Area Index ◽  
Vegetation Growth ◽  
Annual Cycles ◽  
Vegetation Models ◽  
Global Vegetation ◽  
The Impact

In this paper, cross-spectrum analysis was used to verify the agreement of periodicity between the global LAI (leaf area index) and climate factors. The results demonstrated that the LAI of deciduous forests and permanent wetlands have high agreement with temperature, rainfall and radiation over annual cycles. A low agreement between the LAI and seasonal climate variables was observed for some of the temperate and tropical vegetation types including shrublands and evergreen broadleaf forests, possibly due to the diversity of vegetation and human activities. Across all vegetation types, the LAI demonstrated a large time lag following variation in radiation (>1 month), whereas relatively short lag periods were observed between the LAI and annual temperature (around 2 weeks)/rainfall patterns (less than 10 days), suggesting that the impact of radiation on global vegetation growth is relatively slow, which is in accord with the results of previous studies. This work can provide a benchmark of the phenological drivers in global vegetation, from the perspective of periodicity, as well as helping to parameterize and refine the DGVMs (Dynamic Global Vegetation Models) for different vegetation types.

scholarly journals Responses of vegetation growth to climate change in china

2015 ◽  
Vol XL-7/W3 ◽  
pp. 225-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. Li ◽  
T. Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Time Scales ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Southern China ◽  
Arid Environments ◽  
Vegetation Types ◽  
Terrestrial Vegetation ◽  
Vegetation Growth ◽  
Positive Correlations ◽  
The Impact

Global warming-related climate changes have significantly impacted the growth of terrestrial vegetation. Quantifying the spatiotemporal characteristic of the vegetation’s response to climate is crucial for assessing the potential impacts of climate change on vegetation. In this study, we employed the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) that was calculated for various time scales (1 to 12 months) from monthly records of mean temperature and precipitation totals using 511 meteorological stations in China to study the response of vegetation types to droughts. We separated the NDVI into 12 time series (one per month) and also used the SPEI of 12 droughts time scales to make the correlation. The results showed that the differences exist in various vegetation types. For needle-leaved forest, broadleaf forest and shrubland, they responded to droughts at long time scales (9 to 12 months). For grassland, meadow and cultivated vegetation, they responded to droughts at short time scales (1 to 5months). The positive correlations were mostly found in arid and sub-arid environments where soil water was a primary constraining factor for plant growth, and the negative correlations always existed in humid environments where temperature and radiation played significant roles in vegetation growth. Further spatial analysis indicated that the positive correlations were primarily found in northern China, especially in northwestern China, which is a region that always has water deficit, and the negative correlations were found in southern China, especially in southeastern China, that is a region has water surplus most of the year. The disclosed patterns of spatiotemporal responses to droughts are important for studying the impact of climate change to vegetation growth.

scholarly journals A Weighted-Time-Lag Method to Detect Lag Vegetation Response to Climate Variation: A Case Study in Loess Plateau, China, 1982–2013

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 923
Author(s):  
Qianqian Sun ◽  
Chao Liu ◽  
Tianyang Chen ◽  
Anbing Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Loess Plateau ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
New Method ◽  
Climate Factors ◽  
The Loess Plateau ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Vegetation Growth ◽  
Lag Effect

Vegetation fluctuation is sensitive to climate change, and this response exhibits a time lag. Traditionally, scholars estimated this lag effect by considering the immediate prior lag (e.g., where vegetation in the current month is impacted by the climate in a certain prior month) or the lag accumulation (e.g., where vegetation in the current month is impacted by the last several months). The essence of these two methods is that vegetation growth is impacted by climate conditions in the prior period or several consecutive previous periods, which fails to consider the different impacts coming from each of those prior periods. Therefore, this study proposed a new approach, the weighted time-lag method, in detecting the lag effect of climate conditions coming from different prior periods. Essentially, the new method is a generalized extension of the lag-accumulation method. However, the new method detects how many prior periods need to be considered and, most importantly, the differentiated climate impact on vegetation growth in each of the determined prior periods. We tested the performance of the new method in the Loess Plateau by comparing various lag detection methods by using the linear model between the climate factors and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). The case study confirmed four main findings: (1) the response of vegetation growth exhibits time lag to both precipitation and temperature; (2) there are apparent differences in the time lag effect detected by various methods, but the weighted time-lag method produced the highest determination coefficient (R2) in the linear model and provided the most specific lag pattern over the determined prior periods; (3) the vegetation growth is most sensitive to climate factors in the current month and the last month in the Loess Plateau but reflects a varied of responses to other prior months; and (4) the impact of temperature on vegetation growth is higher than that of precipitation. The new method provides a much more precise detection of the lag effect of climate change on vegetation growth and makes a smart decision about soil conservation and ecological restoration after severe climate events, such as long-lasting drought or flooding.

scholarly journals Evaluation of a Global Vegetation Model using time series of satellite vegetation indices

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 1103-1114 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Maignan ◽  
F.-M. Bréon ◽  
F. Chevallier ◽  
N. Viovy ◽  
P. Ciais ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Time Series ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Vegetation Indices ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Vegetation Dynamic ◽  
Rate Of Increase ◽  
Vegetation Models ◽  
Global Vegetation ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Atmospheric CO2 drives most of the greenhouse effect increase. One major uncertainty on the future rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is the impact of the anticipated climate change on the vegetation. Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVM) are used to address this question. ORCHIDEE is such a DGVM that has proven useful for climate change studies. However, there is no objective and methodological way to accurately assess each new available version on the global scale. In this paper, we submit a methodological evaluation of ORCHIDEE by correlating satellite-derived Vegetation Index time series against those of the modeled Fraction of absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FPAR). A perfect correlation between the two is not expected, however an improvement of the model should lead to an increase of the overall performance. We detail two case studies in which model improvements are demonstrated, using our methodology. In the first one, a new phenology version in ORCHIDEE is shown to bring a significant impact on the simulated annual cycles, in particular for C3 Grasses and C3 Crops. In the second case study, we compare the simulations when using two different weather fields to drive ORCHIDEE. The ERA-Interim forcing leads to a better description of the FPAR interannual anomalies than the simulation forced by a mixed CRU-NCEP dataset. This work shows that long time series of satellite observations, despite their uncertainties, can identify weaknesses in global vegetation models, a necessary first step to improving them.

Changing sensitivity of global vegetation productivity to hydro-climate drivers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wantong Li ◽  
Matthias Forkel ◽  
Mirco Migliavacca ◽  
Markus Reichstein ◽  
Sophia Walther ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Root Zone ◽  
Growing Season ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Terrestrial Vegetation ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Patterns ◽  
Vegetation Productivity ◽  
Area Index ◽  
Global Vegetation

<p>Terrestrial vegetation couples the global water, energy and carbon exchange between the atmosphere and the land surface. Thereby, vegetation productivity is determined by a multitude of energy- and water-related variables. While the emergent sensitivity of productivity to these variables has been inferred from Earth observations, its temporal evolution during the last decades is unclear, as well as potential changes in response to trends in hydro-climatic conditions. In this study, we analyze the changing sensitivity of global vegetation productivity to hydro-climate conditions by using satellite-observed vegetation indices (i.e. NDVI) at the monthly timescale from 1982–2015. Further, we repeat the analysis with simulated leaf area index and gross primary productivity from the TRENDY vegetation models, and contrast the findings with the observation-based results. We train a random forest model to predict anomalies of productivity from a comprehensive set of hydro-meteorological variables (temperature, solar radiation, vapor pressure deficit, surface and root-zone soil moisture and precipitation), and to infer the sensitivity to each of these variables. By training models from temporal independent subsets of the data we detect the evolution of sensitivity across time. Results based on observations show that vegetation sensitivity to energy- and water-related variables has significantly changed in many regions across the globe. In particular we find decreased (increased) sensitivity to temperature in very warm (cold) regions. Thereby, the magnitude of the sensitivity tends to differ between the early and late growing seasons. Likewise, we find changing sensitivity to root-zone soil moisture with increases predominantly in the early growing season and decreases in the late growing season. For better understanding the mechanisms behind the sensitivity changes, we analyse land-cover changes, hydro-climatic trends, and abrupt disturbances (e.g. drought, heatwave events or fires could result in breaking points of sensitivity evolution in the local interpretation). In summary, this study sheds light on how and where vegetation productivity changes its response to the drivers under climate change, which can help to understand possibly resulting changes in spatial and temporal patterns of land carbon uptake.</p>

scholarly journals Nonuniform Time-Lag Effects of Asymmetric Warming on Net Primary Productivity across Global Terrestrial Biomes

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (8) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youyue Wen ◽  
Xiaoping Liu ◽  
Guoming Du
Keyword(s):  
Partial Correlation ◽  
Net Primary Productivity ◽  
Net Primary Production ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
Correlation Coefficients ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Terrestrial Vegetation ◽  
Vegetation Growth ◽  
Lag Effects ◽  
Terrestrial Biomes

Abstract Climate warming exhibits asymmetric patterns over a diel time, with the trend of nighttime warming exceeding that of daytime warming, a phenomenon commonly known as asymmetric warming. Recently, increasing studies have documented the significant instantaneous impacts of asymmetric warming on terrestrial vegetation growth, but the indirect effects of asymmetric warming carrying over vegetation growth (referred to here as time-lag effects) remain unknown. Here, we quantitatively studied the time-lag effects (within 1 year) of asymmetric warming on global plant biomes by using terrestrial vegetation net primary production (NPP) derived by the Carnegie–Ames–Stanford Approach (CASA) model and accumulated daytime and nighttime temperature (ATmax and ATmin) from 1982 to 2013. Partial correlation and time-lag analyses were conducted at a monthly scale to obtain the partial correlation coefficients between NPP and ATmax/ATmin and the lagged durations of NPP responses to ATmax/ATmin. The results showed that (i) asymmetric warming has nonuniform time-lag effects on single plant biomes, and distinguishing correlations exist in different vegetation biomes’ associations to asymmetric warming; (ii) terrestrial biomes respond to ATmax (4.63 ± 3.92 months) with a shorter protracted duration than to ATmin (6.06 ± 4.27 months); (iii) forest biomes exhibit longer prolonged duration in responding to asymmetric warming than nonforest biomes do; (iv) mosses and lichens (Mosses), evergreen needleleaf forests (ENF), deciduous needleleaf forests (DNF), and mixed forests (MF) tend to positively correlate with ATmax, whereas the other biomes associate with ATmax with near-equal splits of positive and negative correlation; and (v) ATmin has a predominantly positive influence on terrestrial biomes, except for Mosses and DNF. This study provides a new perspective on terrestrial ecosystem responses to asymmetric warming and highlights the importance of including such nonuniform time-lag effects into currently used terrestrial ecosystem models during future investigations of vegetation–climate interactions.

scholarly journals Land-use and land-cover change carbon emissions between 1901 and 2012 constrained by biomass observations

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (22) ◽  
pp. 5053-5067 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Li ◽  
Philippe Ciais ◽  
Shushi Peng ◽  
Chao Yue ◽  
Yilong Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Model Estimate ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Vegetation Models ◽  
Global Vegetation ◽  
Constraint Approach ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. The use of dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) to estimate CO2 emissions from land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) offers a new window to account for spatial and temporal details of emissions and for ecosystem processes affected by LULCC. One drawback of LULCC emissions from DGVMs, however, is lack of observation constraint. Here, we propose a new method of using satellite- and inventory-based biomass observations to constrain historical cumulative LULCC emissions (ELUCc) from an ensemble of nine DGVMs based on emerging relationships between simulated vegetation biomass and ELUCc. This method is applicable on the global and regional scale. The original DGVM estimates of ELUCc range from 94 to 273 PgC during 1901–2012. After constraining by current biomass observations, we derive a best estimate of 155 ± 50 PgC (1σ Gaussian error). The constrained LULCC emissions are higher than prior DGVM values in tropical regions but significantly lower in North America. Our emergent constraint approach independently verifies the median model estimate by biomass observations, giving support to the use of this estimate in carbon budget assessments. The uncertainty in the constrained ELUCc is still relatively large because of the uncertainty in the biomass observations, and thus reduced uncertainty in addition to increased accuracy in biomass observations in the future will help improve the constraint. This constraint method can also be applied to evaluate the impact of land-based mitigation activities.

scholarly journals A comprehensive benchmarking system for evaluating global vegetation models

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 3313-3340 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. I. Kelley ◽  
I. C. Prentice ◽  
S. P. Harrison ◽  
H. Wang ◽  
M. Simard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Primary Production ◽  
Seasonal Cycle ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Net Primary Production ◽  
Annual Variability ◽  
Benchmark System ◽  
Vegetation Models ◽  
Global Vegetation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Benchmarking System

Abstract. We present a benchmark system for global vegetation models. This system provides a quantitative evaluation of multiple simulated vegetation properties, including primary production; seasonal net ecosystem production; vegetation cover; composition and height; fire regime; and runoff. The benchmarks are derived from remotely sensed gridded datasets and site-based observations. The datasets allow comparisons of annual average conditions and seasonal and inter-annual variability, and they allow the impact of spatial and temporal biases in means and variability to be assessed separately. Specifically designed metrics quantify model performance for each process, and are compared to scores based on the temporal or spatial mean value of the observations and a "random" model produced by bootstrap resampling of the observations. The benchmark system is applied to three models: a simple light-use efficiency and water-balance model (the Simple Diagnostic Biosphere Model: SDBM), the Lund-Potsdam-Jena (LPJ) and Land Processes and eXchanges (LPX) dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs). In general, the SDBM performs better than either of the DGVMs. It reproduces independent measurements of net primary production (NPP) but underestimates the amplitude of the observed CO2 seasonal cycle. The two DGVMs show little difference for most benchmarks (including the inter-annual variability in the growth rate and seasonal cycle of atmospheric CO2), but LPX represents burnt fraction demonstrably more accurately. Benchmarking also identified several weaknesses common to both DGVMs. The benchmarking system provides a quantitative approach for evaluating how adequately processes are represented in a model, identifying errors and biases, tracking improvements in performance through model development, and discriminating among models. Adoption of such a system would do much to improve confidence in terrestrial model predictions of climate change impacts and feedbacks.

scholarly journals A comprehensive benchmarking system for evaluating global vegetation models

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 15723-15785 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. I. Kelley ◽  
I. Colin Prentice ◽  
S. P. Harrison ◽  
H. Wang ◽  
M. Simard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Primary Production ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Net Primary Production ◽  
Balance Model ◽  
Annual Variability ◽  
Benchmark System ◽  
Vegetation Models ◽  
Global Vegetation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Benchmarking System

Abstract. We present a benchmark system for global vegetation models. This system provides a quantitative evaluation of multiple simulated vegetation properties, including primary production; seasonal net ecosystem production; vegetation cover, composition and height; fire regime; and runoff. The benchmarks are derived from remotely sensed gridded datasets and site-based observations. The datasets allow comparisons of annual average conditions and seasonal and inter-annual variability, and they allow the impact of spatial and temporal biases in means and variability to be assessed separately. Specifically designed metrics quantify model performance for each process, and are compared to scores based on the temporal or spatial mean value of the observations and a "random" model produced by bootstrap resampling of the observations. The benchmark system is applied to three models: a simple light-use efficiency and water-balance model (the Simple Diagnostic Biosphere Model: SDBM), and the Lund-Potsdam-Jena (LPJ) and Land Processes and eXchanges (LPX) dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs). SDBM reproduces observed CO2 seasonal cycles, but its simulation of independent measurements of net primary production (NPP) is too high. The two DGVMs show little difference for most benchmarks (including the inter-annual variability in the growth rate and seasonal cycle of atmospheric CO2), but LPX represents burnt fraction demonstrably more accurately. Benchmarking also identified several weaknesses common to both DGVMs. The benchmarking system provides a quantitative approach for evaluating how adequately processes are represented in a model, identifying errors and biases, tracking improvements in performance through model development, and discriminating among models. Adoption of such a system would do much to improve confidence in terrestrial model predictions of climate change impacts and feedbacks.

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