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...
| Published in: | Environmental Research Letters |
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| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/land-surface-anomalies-preceding-the-2010-russian-heat-wave-and-a https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/9/12/124015 |
| 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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