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

• Published in: Environmental Research Letters
• Main Authors: Wright, Christopher K., De Beurs, Kirsten M., Henebry, Geoffrey M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: Arctic amplification; Climate change; Food security; Land surface; MODIS; North Atlantic oscillation; Russian heat wave; Arctic; North Atlantic
• 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

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.