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Updated: Apr 22, 2026

The Use of High-resolution Infrared Thermography HRIT for the Study of Ice Nucleation and Ice Propagation in Plants
Published on: May 8, 2015
Evidence for a weakening relationship between interannual temperature variability and northern vegetation activity
Shilong Piao1, Huijuan Nan2, Chris Huntingford3
11] Key Laboratory of Alpine Ecology and Biodiversity, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China [2] Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China [3] CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences,Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
Abstract:
Satellite-derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), a proxy of vegetation productivity, is known to be correlated with temperature in northern ecosystems. This relationship, however, may change over time following alternations in other environmental factors. Here we show that above 30°N, the strength of the relationship between the interannual variability of growing season NDVI and temperature (partial correlation coefficient RNDVI-GT) declined substantially between 1982 and 2011. This decrease in RNDVI-GT is mainly observed in temperate and arctic ecosystems, and is also partly reproduced by process-based ecosystem model results. In the temperate ecosystem, the decrease in RNDVI-GT coincides with an increase in drought. In the arctic ecosystem, it may be related to a nonlinear response of photosynthesis to temperature, increase of hot extreme days and shrub expansion over grass-dominated tundra. Our results caution the use of results from interannual time scales to constrain the decadal response of plants to ongoing warming.
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