Increased plant growth in the northern high latitudes from 1981 to 1991

R. B. Myneni, C. D. Keeling, C. J. Tucker, G. Asrar and R. R. Nemani
Additional contact information
R. B. Myneni: Boston University
C. D. Keeling: Scripps Institution of Oceanography
C. J. Tucker: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 923
G. Asrar: NASA Headquarters
R. R. Nemani: University of Montana

Nature, 1997, vol. 386, issue 6626, 698-702

Abstract: Abstract Variations in the amplitude and timing of the seasonal cycle of atmospheric CO2 have shown an association with surface air temperature consistent with the hypothesis that warmer temperatures have promoted increases in plant growth during summer1 and/or plant respiration during winter2 in the northern high latitudes. Here we present evidence from satellite data that the photosynthetic activity of terrestrial vegetation increased from 1981 to 1991 in a manner that is suggestive of an increase in plant growth associated with a lengthening of the active growing season. The regions exhibiting the greatest increase lie between 45°N and 70°N, where marked warming has occurred in the spring time3 due to an early disappearance of snow4. The satellite data are concordant with an increase in the amplitude of the seasonal cycle of atmospheric carbon dioxide exceeding 20% since the early 1970s, and an advance of up to seven days in the timing of the drawdown of CO2 in spring and early summer1. Thus, both the satellite data and the CO2 record indicate that the global carbon cycle has responded to interannual fluctuations in surface air temperature which, although small at the global scale, are regionally highly significant.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (48)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/386698a0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:386:y:1997:i:6626:d:10.1038_386698a0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/386698a0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().