Dynamics of aboveground phytomass of the circumpolar Arctic tundra during the past three decades

By H. Epstein, M. Raynolds, Donald A. Walker, U. Bhatt, Compton J. Tucker, Jorge E. Pinzón. 2012

263 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Numerous studies have evaluated the dynamics of Arctic tundra vegetation throughout the past few decades, using remotely sensed proxies of vegetation, such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). While extremely useful, these coarse-scale satellite-derived measurements give us minimal information with regard to how these changes are being expressed on the ground, in terms of tundra structure and function. In this analysis, we used a strong regression model between NDVI and aboveground tundra phytomass, developed from extensive field-harvested measurements of vegetation biomass, to estimate the biomass dynamics of the circumpolar Arctic tundra over the period of continuous satellite records (1982–2010). We found that the southernmost tundra subzones (C–E) dominate the increases in biomass, ranging from 20 to 26%, although there was a high degree of heterogeneity across regions, floristic provinces, and vegetation types. The estimated increase in carbon of the aboveground live vegetation of 0.40 Pg C over the past three decades is substantial, although quite small relative to anthropogenic C emissions. However, a 19.8% average increase in aboveground biomass has major implications for nearly all aspects of tundra ecosystems including hydrology, active layer depths, permafrost regimes, wildlife and human use of Arctic landscapes. While spatially extensive on-the-ground measurements of tundra biomass were conducted in the development of this analysis, validation is still impossible without more repeated, long-term monitoring of Arctic tundra biomass in the field.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4854e2387ce3b5af80bb23924e52d41009b23c5f

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Citations in the corpus

Phenological advancement in arctic bird species: relative importance of snow melt and ecological factors (2014, background): “NDVIbased phenology data provide a consistent measure of annual vegetation green-up and are strongly related to arctic tundra biomass (Epstein et al. 2012) for four arctic-breeding bird taxa, we focused our analyses on Prudhoe Bay because this site had the most comprehensive temporal coverage.”
A Non-Stationary 1981-2012 AVHRR NDVI3g Time Series (2014, result): “Papers in this issue and elsewhere compare our data set to geophysical variables to independently establish the utility of our data set for monitoring non-stationary or climate phenomena at northern high latitude regions [80–84].”
Biomass offsets little or none of permafrost carbon release from soils, streams, and wildfire: an expert assessment (2016, background): “Model projections of future boreal and Arctic biomass agree in sign but vary widely in magnitude, with increases of 9–61 Pg carbon projected by 2100 (Qian et al 2010, Koven et al 2011, Schaefer et al 2011, Falloon et al 2012).”
Environment, vegetation and greenness (NDVI) along the North America and Eurasia Arctic transects (2012, background): “The close correspondence between the AVHRR-NDVI and zonal aboveground biomass along both transects gives us increased confidence that the AVHRR satellites are providing data that can be used to map the distribution of tundra biomass (e.g., Epstein et al 2012).”
Tundra shrubification and tree-line advance amplify arctic climate warming: results from an individual-based dynamic vegetation model (2013, background): “…index, NDVI) over the last three decades mirrors increases in photosynthetic productivity across arctic tundra (Tucker et al 2001, Goetz et al 2007, Epstein et al 2012); transect and plot-scale studies have associated the degree of summer warmth with an increased abundance of shrubs and forbs…”
Temperature modulates intra-plant growth of Salix polaris from a high Arctic site (Svalbard) (2013, background): “Recent studies on tundra ecosystems have shown that the patterns of plant growth response to climate change are heterogeneous and subject to regional variations (Hudson and Henry 2009; Campioli et al. 2012; Epstein et al. 2012).”