Remote sensing at the interface between ecology and climate sciences

• Published in: Meteorological Applications
• Main Authors: Rocchini, Duccio, Lenoir, Jonathan
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: remote sensing; biodiversity; ecosystem; ecology; Arctic; albedo; Climate change
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11585/832161; https://doi.org/10.1002/met.2022

Anthropogenic climate change is causing a severe impact on the survival of organisms (Brondizio et al., 2019; Shukla et al., 2019). Climate is one of the major drivers of species distributions, and the velocity at which the cur- rent climate is changing, owing to human activities, already induces a redistribution of life on Earth at an unprecedented speed, especially in the oceans where marine life is shifting towards the poles six times faster than the velocity at which terrestrial life is shifting pole- ward on land (Lenoir et al., 2020). Besides, biodiversity redistribution may enhance climate warming through positive feedback loops (e.g., the shrubification of the Arctic altering the surface albedo), thus indirectly affect- ing human well-being (Pecl et al., 2017). For this reason, both essential climate variables (ECVs) and essential bio- diversity variables (EBVs) have been developed as proxies for the early detection of climate change and biodiversity redistribution (Bojinski et al., 2014; Pereira et al., 2013; Schmeller et al., 2018).