Earth ID: 4452

Vegetation Greening Trend in Canada and Alaska: 1984-2012

Visualizations by Cindy Starr Released on June 2, 2016

High-latitude regions have been warming rapidly since the last century, at a rate higher than the global average. At continental scales, satellite data since the 1980s have indicated increased vegetation productivity (greening) across northern high latitudes, and a productivity decline (browning) for certain areas of undisturbed boreal forest of Canada and Alaska. These remote sensing results have been corroborated by in-situ evidence.

This research provides a spatially complete view of the vegetation greenness change for all of Canada and Alaska by calculating per-pixel NDVI trend from all available 1984–2012 peak-summer Landsat-5 and -7 surface reflectance data. By incorporating observations from overlapping scenes, researchers obtained up to 160 valid NDVI values for certain areas from this 29-year period, establishing the mid-Summer greenness trend.

This animation shows the resulting greenness trend over Canada and Alaska with special attention focused on the regions of Quebec and northern Alaska.

The colorbar applied to the vegetation productivity trend data. Green colors indicate an increase while brown colors indicate a decrease.

Used Elsewhere In

Visualization Credits

Cindy Starr (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Lead Visualizer
Junchang Ju (USRA): Scientist
Jeffrey Masek (NASA/GSFC): Scientist
Matthew R. Radcliff (USRA): Producer
Eric Sokolowsky (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Data Provider
Joycelyn Thomson Jones (NASA/GSFC): Project Support
Leann Johnson (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Project Support
Laurence Schuler (ADNET Systems, Inc.): Technical Support
Ian Jones (ADNET Systems, Inc.): Technical Support

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

Science Paper:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425716300013

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4452

Missions:
Landsat
LDCM: Landsat Data Continuity Mission

Data Used:

Landsat/Landsat NDVI Trend (1984–2012)

1984-2012

This research used a nominal peak greenness period, July 1 to August 31, to accommodate tundra of all regions for Landsat data selection. We only considered the terrain-corrected scenes, excluding scenes that have cloud cover more than 80%. As a result, a total of 87,762 Landsat scenes over 1271 Path/Row locations were selected from 1984-2012. Of these, 63% were from Landsat-5, as Landsat-5 provided the only data source for 1984-1998 and continued to acquire data until 2011. This work aims to provide a spatially complete view of the vegetation greenness change for all of Canada and Alaska by calculating per-pixel NDVI trend from all available 1984-2012 peak-summer Landsat-5 and -7 surface reflectance data.

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Keywords:
SVS >> Landsat
SVS >> NDVI
GCMD >> Location >> Canada
GCMD >> Location >> Alaska
SVS >> Hyperwall
NASA Science >> Earth

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0