The causes of a greening trend detected in the Arctic using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) are still poorly understood. Changes in NDVI are a result of multiple ecological and social factors that affect tundra net primary productivity. Here we use a 25 year time series of AVHRR-derived NDVI data (AVHRR: advanced very high resolution radiometer), climate analysis, a global geo...

Baseline data are needed to determine the overall magnitude and direction of change in ecosystem functioning. This letter presents an approach to estimate potential NDVI fromenvironmental variables and training data of actual NDVI in nature reserves. Patterns of deviations of actual NDVI from the baseline generally correspond with land-use types in the western United States.

To remotely monitor vegetation at temporal and spatial resolutions unobtainable with satellite-based systems, near remote sensing systems must be employed. To this extent we used Normalized Difference Vegetation Index NDVI sensors and normal digital cameras to monitor the greenness of six different but common and widespread High Arctic plant species/groups (graminoid/Salix polaris; Cassiope tet...

The response of vegetation to regional climate change was quantified between 1982 and 2010 in the Mongolian plateau by integrating the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) (1982–2006) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) NDVI (2000–2010). Average NDVI values f...

T e influence of pixel heterogeneity, background, atmospheric and bidirectional effects on the relationship between fraction of photosynthetically active radiation absorbed by the photosynthesizing tissue in a canopy (FAPAR) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) is investigated using a three-dimensional model of radiation transfer. Top of the canopy (TOC) NDVI and FAPAR increase wit...

Permafrost is extremely sensitive to climate change. The degradation of permafrost has strong and profound effects on vegetation. The permafrost zone of northeastern China is the second largest region of permafrost in China and lies on the south edge of the Eurasian cryolithozone. This study analyzed the spatiotemporal variations of the growing-season Normalization Difference Vegetation Index (...

Terrestrial vegetation dynamics are closely influenced by a multitude of factors. This study investigated the relationships between vegetation patterns and their main influencing factors. The joint entropy method was employed to evaluate the dependence between normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and coupled variables in the middle reaches of Hei River basin. Based on the spatial distr...

Efforts to estimate plant productivity using satellite data can be frustrated by the presence of cloud cover. We developed a new method to overcome this problem, focussing on the high-arctic archipelago of Svalbard where extensive cloud cover during the growing season can prevent plant productivity from being estimated over large areas. We used a field-based time-series (2000−2009) of live abov...