Changing patterns of global‐scale vegetation photosynthesis, 1982–1999

Abstract

The primary objective of this research was to assess changes in global vegetation photosynthesis between 1982 and 1999. Global‐scale Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data from the Pathfinder AVHRR Land (PAL) and Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) datasets were analysed for 96% of the non‐Antarctic land area of the Earth. The results showed that between 1982 and 1999 over 30% of the Earth's land surface increased and less than 5% decreased in annual average photosynthesis greater than 4%. Although both the PAL and GIMMS datasets produced broadly similar patterns of change, there were distinct differences between the two datasets. Changes in vegetation photosynthesis were occurring in spatial clusters across the globe and were being driven by climate change, El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events and human activity.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Earth Observing System Pathfinder Program of NASA's Mission to Planet Earth in cooperation with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the PAL data, which were provided by the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS), Distributed Active Archive Center at Goddard Space Flight Center. We would like to thank the University of Maryland and their Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF), a funded member of NASA's Earth Science Information Partnership, for the use of their 8 km land cover map, GIMMS data, and technical assistance. We would also like to thank the reviewers of the manuscript, especially concerning the comment to use the GIMMS dataset.