Investigating the Effects of Teleconnection Indices on Net Primary Production in the North of Iran’s Alborz Mountains

One of the main scientific topics on the effects of global climate change is to assess changes in the carbon cycle in rangelands. Net Primary Production (NPP) is an important component of this cycle, in terms of carbon storage, and a key indicator for assessing the ecosystem function. This research aimed to investigate the correlation between NPP and ocean-atmospheric oscillations, monthly and seasonally, from 2000 to 2016 in the north of Iran’s Alborz Mountains. Net Primary Production of terrestrial vegetation was extracted from MODIS data and used in a model along with ocean-atmospheric oscillations. Multivariate regression analysis was used to investigate the simultaneous and lagged status in different timescales. Mann-Kendal test was used for trend analysis in different seasons over the studied period. Results showed that the highest NPP values were 2.06 and 1.30 g C m-2 d-1 in spring and summer and the lowest were 0.68 and 0.55 g C m-2 d-1 in autumn and winter, respectively. The trend of NPP variations was significantly different in autumn and winter. Overall, it was showed that NPP was affected by climatic variables, especially precipitation, and variables  related to ENSO indicator are the main factors affecting precipitation, thereby affecting NPP in the north of Iran.