Identification of land surface temperature and albedo trends in AVHRR Pathfinder data from 1982 to 2005 for northern Siberia

• Published in: International journal of remote sensing Vol. 34; no. 12; pp. 4491 - 4507
• Main Authors: Urban, M., Forkel, M., Schmullius, C., Hese, S., Hüttich, C., Herold, M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Taylor & Francis 20.06.2013
• Subjects: air temperature; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Applied geophysics; Biological and medical sciences; climate change; climate models; dynamics; Earth sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects. Techniques; growing season; growth; impacts; Internal geophysics; orbital drift; recent climate-change; shrub expansion; Siberia; snow; surface temperature; Teledetection and vegetation maps; time series analysis; tundra; vegetation; polar regions; Russian Federation; Eurasia; Arctic region; Siberia; Time series; Surface temperature; remote sensing; vegetation; climate; Forecast model; Earth surface; tundra; Phenology; arctic environment; radiometry; taiga environment; albedo; climate change
• ISSN: 0143-1161; 1366-5901; 1366-5901
• DOI: 10.1080/01431161.2013.779760

The arctic regions are highly vulnerable to climate change. Climate models predict an increase in global mean temperatures for the upcoming century. The arctic environment is subject to significant changes of the land surface. Especially the changes of vegetation pattern and the phenological cycle in the taiga-tundra transition area are of high importance in climate change research. This study focuses on time series and trend analysis of land surface temperature, albedo, snow water equivalent, and normalized difference vegetation index information in the time period of 1982-2005 for northern Siberia. The findings show strong dependencies between these parameters and their inter-annual dynamics, which indicate changes in vegetation growing period. We found a strong negative correlation between land surface temperature and albedo conditions for the beginning (60-90%) of the growing season for selected hot spot trend regions in northern Siberia.