Five years of land surface phenology in a large-scale flooding and draining manipulation in a coastal Arctic ecosystem

Goswami, S.; Gamon, J. A.; Vargas, S.; Tweedie, C. E.

doi:10.1101/146662

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bioRxiv · 10.1101/146662

Five years of land surface phenology in a large-scale flooding and draining manipulation in a coastal Arctic ecosystem

Goswami, S.·Gamon, J. A.·Vargas, S.·Tweedie, C. E.

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Abstract

This study was motivated by the knowledge gap for observing the complex interplay between surface hydrology and plant phenology in arctic landscapes and was conducted as part of a large scale, multi investigator flooding and draining experiment near Barrow, Alaska (71{degrees}1701\" N, 156{degrees}3548\" W) during 2005 - 2009. Hyperspectral reflectance data were collected in the visible to near IR region of the spectrum using a robotic tram system that operated along a 300m transects during the snow free growing period between June and August, 2005-09. Interannual patterns of land-surface phenology (NDVI) unexpectedly lacked marked differences under experimental conditions. Measurement of NDVI was, however, compromised for presence of surface water. Land-surface phenology and surface water was negatively correlated, which held when scaled to a 2km by 2km MODIS subset of the study area. This result suggested that published findings of greening of the Arctic may relate to a drying of the Arctic i.e. reduced surface water in vegetated high-latitude landscapes where surface water is close to ground level.

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Goswami, S., Gamon, J. A., Vargas, S., Tweedie, C. E.. 2017-06-06. Five years of land surface phenology in a large-scale flooding and draining manipulation in a coastal Arctic ecosystem. https://doi.org/10.1101/146662

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