Land surface anomalies preceding the 2010 Russian heat wave and a link to the North Atlantic oscillation

The Eurasian wheat belt (EWB) spans a region across Eastern Ukraine, Southern Russia, and Northern Kazakhstan; accounting for nearly 15% of global wheat production. We assessed land surface conditions across the EWB during the early growing season (April–May–June; AMJ) leading up to the 2010 Russian...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental Research Letters
Main Authors: Christopher K Wright, Kirsten M de Beurs, Geoffrey M Henebry
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2014
Subjects:
Russian heat wave
North Atlantic oscillation
land surface
food security
climate change
Arctic amplification
Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering
TD1-1066
Environmental sciences
GE1-350
Science
Q
Physics
QC1-999
Arctic
Climate change
North Atlantic
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/9/12/124015
https://doaj.org/article/3033bc0ca0b3401db1a6a125b8f89919
Description
Summary:The Eurasian wheat belt (EWB) spans a region across Eastern Ukraine, Southern Russia, and Northern Kazakhstan; accounting for nearly 15% of global wheat production. We assessed land surface conditions across the EWB during the early growing season (April–May–June; AMJ) leading up to the 2010 Russian heat wave, and over a longer-term period from 2000 to 2010. A substantial reduction in early season values of the normalized difference vegetation index occurred prior to the Russian heat wave, continuing a decadal decline in early season primary production in the region. In 2010, an anomalously cold winter followed by an abrupt shift to a warmer-than-normal early growing season was consistent with a persistently negative phase of the North Atlantic oscillation (NAO). Regression analyses showed that early season vegetation productivity in the EWB is a function of both the winter (December–January–February; DJF) and AMJ phases of the NAO. Land surface anomalies preceding the heat wave were thus consistent with highly negative values of both the DJF NAO and AMJ NAO in 2010.

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