Arctic greening associated with lengthening growing seasons in Northern Alaska
Many studies have reported that the Arctic is greening; however, we lack an understanding of the detailed patterns and processes that are leading to this observed greening. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is used to quantify greening, which has had largely positive trends over the...
Published in: | Environmental Research Letters |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
IOP Publishing
2019
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab5e26 https://doaj.org/article/bd22187809d947b484f5236cdc20cedf |
id |
ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:bd22187809d947b484f5236cdc20cedf |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:bd22187809d947b484f5236cdc20cedf 2023-09-05T13:16:05+02:00 Arctic greening associated with lengthening growing seasons in Northern Alaska Kyle A Arndt Maria J Santos Susan Ustin Scott J Davidson Doug Stow Walter C Oechel Thao T P Tran Brian Graybill Donatella Zona 2019-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab5e26 https://doaj.org/article/bd22187809d947b484f5236cdc20cedf EN eng IOP Publishing https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab5e26 https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ab5e26 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/bd22187809d947b484f5236cdc20cedf Environmental Research Letters, Vol 14, Iss 12, p 125018 (2019) high-resolution remote sensing Arctic greening time-series climate change greening landscape heterogeneity Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 article 2019 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab5e26 2023-08-13T00:37:08Z Many studies have reported that the Arctic is greening; however, we lack an understanding of the detailed patterns and processes that are leading to this observed greening. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is used to quantify greening, which has had largely positive trends over the last few decades using low spatial resolution satellite imagery such as AVHRR or MODIS over the pan-Arctic region. However, substantial fine scale spatial heterogeneity in the Arctic makes this large-scale investigation hard to interpret in terms of vegetation and other environmental changes. Here we focus on one area of the northern Alaskan Arctic using high spatial resolution (4 m) multispectral satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe ^™ to analyze the greening trend near Utqiaġvik (formerly known as Barrow) over 14 years from 2002 to 2016. We found that tundra vegetation has been greening ( τ = 0.65, p = 0.01, NDVI increase of 0.01 yr ^−1 ) despite no overall change in vegetation community composition. The greening is most closely correlated to the number of thawing degree days ( R ^2 = 0.77, F = 21.5, p < 0.001) which increased in a similar linear trend over the 14 year study period (1.79 ± 0.50 days per year, p < 0.01, τ = −0.56). This suggests that in this Arctic ecosystem, greening is occurring due to a lengthening growing season that appears to stimulate plant productivity without any significant change in vegetation communities. We found that vegetation communities in wetter locations greened about twice as fast as those found in drier conditions supporting the hypothesis that these communities respond more strongly to warming. We suggest that in Arctic environments, vegetation productivity may continue to rise, particularly in wet areas. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Greening Arctic Barrow Climate change Tundra Alaska Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic Environmental Research Letters 14 12 125018 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
high-resolution remote sensing Arctic greening time-series climate change greening landscape heterogeneity Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
spellingShingle |
high-resolution remote sensing Arctic greening time-series climate change greening landscape heterogeneity Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 Kyle A Arndt Maria J Santos Susan Ustin Scott J Davidson Doug Stow Walter C Oechel Thao T P Tran Brian Graybill Donatella Zona Arctic greening associated with lengthening growing seasons in Northern Alaska |
topic_facet |
high-resolution remote sensing Arctic greening time-series climate change greening landscape heterogeneity Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
description |
Many studies have reported that the Arctic is greening; however, we lack an understanding of the detailed patterns and processes that are leading to this observed greening. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is used to quantify greening, which has had largely positive trends over the last few decades using low spatial resolution satellite imagery such as AVHRR or MODIS over the pan-Arctic region. However, substantial fine scale spatial heterogeneity in the Arctic makes this large-scale investigation hard to interpret in terms of vegetation and other environmental changes. Here we focus on one area of the northern Alaskan Arctic using high spatial resolution (4 m) multispectral satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe ^™ to analyze the greening trend near Utqiaġvik (formerly known as Barrow) over 14 years from 2002 to 2016. We found that tundra vegetation has been greening ( τ = 0.65, p = 0.01, NDVI increase of 0.01 yr ^−1 ) despite no overall change in vegetation community composition. The greening is most closely correlated to the number of thawing degree days ( R ^2 = 0.77, F = 21.5, p < 0.001) which increased in a similar linear trend over the 14 year study period (1.79 ± 0.50 days per year, p < 0.01, τ = −0.56). This suggests that in this Arctic ecosystem, greening is occurring due to a lengthening growing season that appears to stimulate plant productivity without any significant change in vegetation communities. We found that vegetation communities in wetter locations greened about twice as fast as those found in drier conditions supporting the hypothesis that these communities respond more strongly to warming. We suggest that in Arctic environments, vegetation productivity may continue to rise, particularly in wet areas. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Kyle A Arndt Maria J Santos Susan Ustin Scott J Davidson Doug Stow Walter C Oechel Thao T P Tran Brian Graybill Donatella Zona |
author_facet |
Kyle A Arndt Maria J Santos Susan Ustin Scott J Davidson Doug Stow Walter C Oechel Thao T P Tran Brian Graybill Donatella Zona |
author_sort |
Kyle A Arndt |
title |
Arctic greening associated with lengthening growing seasons in Northern Alaska |
title_short |
Arctic greening associated with lengthening growing seasons in Northern Alaska |
title_full |
Arctic greening associated with lengthening growing seasons in Northern Alaska |
title_fullStr |
Arctic greening associated with lengthening growing seasons in Northern Alaska |
title_full_unstemmed |
Arctic greening associated with lengthening growing seasons in Northern Alaska |
title_sort |
arctic greening associated with lengthening growing seasons in northern alaska |
publisher |
IOP Publishing |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab5e26 https://doaj.org/article/bd22187809d947b484f5236cdc20cedf |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Greening Arctic Barrow Climate change Tundra Alaska |
genre_facet |
Arctic Greening Arctic Barrow Climate change Tundra Alaska |
op_source |
Environmental Research Letters, Vol 14, Iss 12, p 125018 (2019) |
op_relation |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab5e26 https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ab5e26 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/bd22187809d947b484f5236cdc20cedf |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab5e26 |
container_title |
Environmental Research Letters |
container_volume |
14 |
container_issue |
12 |
container_start_page |
125018 |
_version_ |
1776197803154866176 |