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Monitoring biosphere vegetation 1998–2009
Author(s) -
Gobron N.,
Belward A.,
Pinty B.,
Knorr W.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2010gl043870
Subject(s) - biosphere , vegetation (pathology) , photosynthetically active radiation , climatology , environmental science , satellite , biosphere model , scale (ratio) , global change , series (stratigraphy) , remote sensing , climate change , geography , geology , ecology , physics , oceanography , cartography , medicine , paleontology , photosynthesis , botany , pathology , astronomy , biology
Earth Observation from space offers the opportunity to produce time‐series of geophysical products that can be used to assess the state and changes of land surfaces. The Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR) is used to monitor the state and evolution of terrestrial vegetation, and also constitutes a state variable in advanced Earth system models that contain a detailed enough description of the terrestrial biosphere. This present study reports a 12‐year (1998–2009) time series of FAPAR derived from the combination of two satellite‐based sensors. We find that FAPAR exhibits large‐scale inter‐annual variations and multi‐year trends. The fraction of land grid cells showing positive anomalies, as computed by the deviation from the 12‐year climatology, shows a rapid decrease in the early part of the analysis period (until 2004). Large negative anomalies can be associated with previously reported large‐scale climate events, such as global land drying associated with El Niño Southern Oscillation 2000–2003, or the European drought of 2003 or recent Australian droughts The present analysis demonstrates that FAPAR is an important global variable suitable for large‐scale monitoring of climate impacts on the terrestrial biosphere.