Contributions of Climatic Factors to Interannual Variability of the Vegetation Index in Northern China Grasslands

Understanding the atmosphere–land surface interaction is crucial for clarifying the responses and feedbacks of terrestrial ecosystems to climate change. However, quantifying the effects of multiple climatic factors to vegetation activities is challenging. Using the geographical detector model (GDM),...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of climate 2020-01, Vol.33 (1), p.175-183
Main Authors: Zhao, Wei, Hu, Zhongmin, Guo, Qun, Wu, Genan, Chen, Ruru, Li, Shenggong
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Air temperature
Annual variations
Aridity
Climate and vegetation
Climate change
Climate effects
Climate variability
Datasets
Ecosystems
Grasslands
Humidity
Hypotheses
Interannual variability
Normalized difference vegetative index
Precipitation
Productivity
Relative humidity
Solar radiation
Statistical methods
Studies
Terrestrial ecosystems
Variability
Vegetation
Vegetation index
Vegetation type
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Summary:Understanding the atmosphere–land surface interaction is crucial for clarifying the responses and feedbacks of terrestrial ecosystems to climate change. However, quantifying the effects of multiple climatic factors to vegetation activities is challenging. Using the geographical detector model (GDM), this study quantifies the relative contributions of climatic factors including precipitation, relative humidity, solar radiation, and air temperature to the interannual variation (IAV) of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in the northern grasslands of China during 2000 to 2016. The results show heterogeneous spatial patterns of determinant climatic factors on the IAV of NDVI. Precipitation and relative humidity jointly controlled the IAV of NDVI, illustrating more explanatory power than solar radiation and air temperature, and accounting for higher proportion of area as the determinant factor in the study region. It is noteworthy that relative humidity, a proxy of atmospheric aridity, is as important as precipitation for the IAV of NDVI. The contribution of climatic factors to the IAV of NDVI varied by vegetation type. Owing to the stronger explanatory power of climatic factors on NDVI variability in temperate grasslands, we conclude that climate variabilitymay exert more influence on temperate grasslands than on alpine grasslands. Our study highlights the importance of the role of atmospheric aridity to vegetation activities in grasslands. We suggest focusing more on the differences between vegetation types when addressing the climate–vegetation relationships at a regional scale.
ISSN:0894-8755
1520-0442
DOI:10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0587.1