Patterns of Arctic Tundra Greenness Based on Spatially Downscaled Solar-Induced Fluorescence

Dongjie Fu,Yijie Sui,Juan Wang,Fenzhen Su

doi:10.3390/rs11121460

Abstract

A general greening trend in the Arctic tundra biome has been indicated by satellite remote sensing data over recent decades. However, since 2011, there have been signs of browning trends in many parts of the region. Previous research on tundra greenness across the Arctic region has relied on the satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). In this research, we initially used spatially downscaled solar-induced fluorescence (SIF) data to analyze the spatiotemporal variation of Arctic tundra greenness (2007–2013). The results derived from the SIF data were also compared with those from two NDVIs (the Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies NDVI3g and MOD13Q1 NDVI), and the eddy-covariance (EC) observed gross primary production (GPP). It was found that most parts of the Arctic tundra below 75° N were browning (–0.0098 mW/m2/sr/nm/year, where sr is steradian and nm is nanometer) using SIF, whereas spatially and temporally heterogeneous trends (greening or browning) were obtained based on the two NDVI products. This research has further demonstrated that SIF data can provide an alternative direct proxy for Arctic tundra greenness.

Highlights

Since the early 1980s, increased vegetation productivity or greening of Arctic tundra has been deduced from the trend of using the satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) [1,2,3,4]
Unlike previous studies that have shown Arctic tundra greening as the overall trend with browning at some small regions [4,13,25,26], our study found that most parts of the Arctic tundra below 75◦ N were browning based on solar-induced fluorescence (SIF) data
It was found that SIF had the potential to exhibit more effectiveness as an indicator of Arctic tundra greenness

Summary

Introduction

Since the early 1980s, increased vegetation productivity or greening of Arctic tundra has been deduced from the trend of using the satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) [1,2,3,4]. Since 2011, regional surface browning trends have been observed that have reversed the direction of the Arctic greening trend after nearly 33 years [4,5,25,26]. If such a change in the greenness trend corresponds to the decline in carbon uptake capacity or vegetation productivity via photosynthesis, most ecosystem models have not considered this shift [26]. It is important to understand which parts of the Arctic region are most sensitive and show the greatest browning [4]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion