The Effects of Asymmetric Diurnal Warming on Vegetation Growth of the Tibetan Plateau over the Past Three Decades

Haoming Xia, Ainong Li, Gary Feng, Yang Li, Yaochen Qin, Guangbin Lei and Yaoping Cui
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Haoming Xia: College of Environment and Planning, Key Laboratory of Geospatial Technology for Middle and Lower Yellow River Regions, Henan Collaborative Innovation Center of Urban-Rural Coordinated Development, Henan University, Kaifeng 475004, China
Ainong Li: Research Center for Digital Mountain and Remote Sensing Application, Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, China
Gary Feng: United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service, Genetics and Sustainable Agriculture Research Unit; Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA
Yang Li: College of Environment and Planning, Key Laboratory of Geospatial Technology for Middle and Lower Yellow River Regions, Henan Collaborative Innovation Center of Urban-Rural Coordinated Development, Henan University, Kaifeng 475004, China
Yaochen Qin: College of Environment and Planning, Key Laboratory of Geospatial Technology for Middle and Lower Yellow River Regions, Henan Collaborative Innovation Center of Urban-Rural Coordinated Development, Henan University, Kaifeng 475004, China
Guangbin Lei: Research Center for Digital Mountain and Remote Sensing Application, Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, China
Yaoping Cui: College of Environment and Planning, Key Laboratory of Geospatial Technology for Middle and Lower Yellow River Regions, Henan Collaborative Innovation Center of Urban-Rural Coordinated Development, Henan University, Kaifeng 475004, China

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-14

Abstract: Temperatures over the past three decades have exhibited an asymmetric warming pattern between night and day throughout the Tibetan Plateau. However, the implications of such diurnally heterogeneous warming on vegetation growth is still poorly understood. In this paper, we evaluate how vegetation growth has responded to daytime and night-time warming at the regional, biome, and pixel scales based on normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and meteorological data from 1982 to 2015. We found a persistent increase in the growing seasonal minimum temperature ( T min ) and maximum temperature ( T max ) over the Tibetan Plateau between 1982–2015, whereas the rate of increase of T min was 1.7 times that of T max . After removing the correlations between T min , precipitation, and solar radiation, we found that the partial correlation between T max and NDVI was positive in wetter and colder areas and negative in semi-arid and arid regions. In contrast, the partial correlation between T min and NDVI was positive in high-cold steppe and meadow steppe and negative in montane steppe or wet forest. We also found diverse responses of vegetation type to daytime and night-time warming across the Tibetan Plateau. Our results provide a demonstration for studying regional responses of vegetation to climate extremes under global climate change.

Keywords: climate extremes; global warming; Tibetan Plateau; ecological responses; NDVI3g; partial correlation analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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