EGU24-4516, updated on 08 Mar 2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-4516
EGU General Assembly 2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Divergent responses of vegetation dynamics to a changing climate through different VOD products in China

Mingzhu He1, Yonghong Yi2, Xiaojun Li3, Jean-Pierre Wigneron3, John Kimball4, Rolf Reichle5, Lei Fan6, Hans Chen7, and Qian Zhang8
Mingzhu He et al.
  • 1School of National Safety and Emergency Management, Beijing Normal University, Zhuhai, China (hemingzhu@bnu.edu.cn)
  • 2Tongji University, Shanghai, China (yonghong_yi@tongji.edu.cn)
  • 3Universit ́e de Bordeaux, F-33140 Villenave d’Ornon, France (xiaojun.li@inrae.fr; jean-pierre.wigneron@inrae.fr)
  • 4University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA (John.Kimball@mso.umt.edu)
  • 5Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA (rolf.h.reichle@nasa.gov)
  • 6School of Geographical Sciences, Southwest University, Chongqing, China (leifan33@swu.edu.cn)
  • 7Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden (hans.chen@chalmers.se)
  • 8School of Geomatics Science and Technology, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, China (zhangqianzh@njtech.edu.cn)

Vegetation optical depth (VOD), has been widely assessed for monitoring vegetation carbon and water status under different conditions. However, their abilities to reflect the integrated dynamics in vegetation status under a changing climate are rarely investigated, especially in China. To fill this gap, this study examines seven VOD products for their capabilities to monitor the changes in vegetation status under a varying climate from 2015 to 2021 in China, including X-, C- and L-band VOD products from AMSR-E, AMSR2, SMOS and SMAP. The results indicate that most VOD products generally show consistent responses to temperature (Ta), vapor pressure deficit (VPD) and soil moisture (SM) variations for the ecosystems with simple canopy structure, such as temperate grassland and shrublands, which are also water-limited ecosystems. Moreover, these VOD products also exhibit similar responses to a varying climate for Ta-constrained temperate forests, independent of retrieval frequencies and algorithms. For other ecosystems, however, the links between VOD and climate variables are sensitive to retrieval frequencies and algorithms. Specifically, due to the relatively high frequency, X-band VOD products can capture vegetation responses to Ta, VPD and SM stresses as the vegetation canopies respond rapidly to climate variations, especially for ecosystems located in the dry and warm regions. Furthermore, all seven VOD products, and especially X-band VOD, show high sensitivity to SM carry-over effects on vegetation dynamics, especially for temperate non-forests ecosystems. These findings help clarify the capability of different VOD products to mirror vegetation responses to a changing climate across different ecosystems in China, highlighting the importance of choosing the most appropriate VOD product as vegetation proxies in global and regional studies.

How to cite: He, M., Yi, Y., Li, X., Wigneron, J.-P., Kimball, J., Reichle, R., Fan, L., Chen, H., and Zhang, Q.: Divergent responses of vegetation dynamics to a changing climate through different VOD products in China, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-4516, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-4516, 2024.