Open AccessThe observed cooling effect of desert blooms based on high‐resolution Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer products
Author(s) -
He Bin,
Huang Ling,
Liu Junjie,
Wang Haiyan,
Lű Aifeng,
Jiang Weiguo,
Chen Ziyue
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
earth and space science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.843
H-Index - 23
ISSN - 2333-5084
DOI - 10.1002/2016ea000238
Subject(s) - environmental science , desertification , moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer , climate change , desert (philosophy) , vegetation (pathology) , albedo (alchemy) , land cover , desert climate , evapotranspiration , climatology , atmospheric sciences , land use , arid , satellite , ecology , geology , oceanography , medicine , art , philosophy , epistemology , pathology , performance art , engineering , biology , art history , aerospace engineering
Abstract Desert greening through planting or irrigation is a potential approach to mitigate desertification and climate warming, but its influence on regional climate is unclear due to scarcity of observations. “Desert blooms,” which are natural phenomena usually associated with the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, regularly occur in the world's driest desert, the Atacama Desert. This sudden conversion of land cover likely has a large impact on regional climate through alteration of local energy budgets and provides a unique opportunity to study the potential climatic and environmental consequences of desert greening. Here we evaluated the land surface effects of blooms in the Atacama Desert using vegetation and climate data acquired from remote sensing. The rapid vegetation growth during blooms led to an increase in evapotranspiration and a decrease in albedo. These two processes caused a 0.31°C ± 0.05°C decrease in daytime land surface temperature. During nighttime, we observed a 0.02°C ± 0.02°C increase in land surface temperature due to enhanced heat capacity associated with blooms. This asymmetric diurnal variation in land surface temperature produced a net decrease in daily land surface temperature of 0.29°C ± 0.07°C. Our observations demonstrate the potential benefits of desert blooms on local climate. Results from this study also provide new evidence for plausible climate consequences expected from local “desert greening” strategies.