Change of NDVI during Growing Season and Its Relationship with Climate in North China and the Adjacent Areas from 1982 to 2014

ZHANG Xinyue, FENG Yuhao, ZENG Hui, TANG Zhiyao†

Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, Ministry of Education, School of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, † Corresponding author, E-mail: zytang@urban.pku.edu.cn

Abstract Using data from 690 meteorological observatories and GIMMS NDVI 3g data from 1982 to 2014, trend analysis, wavelet partial cross-correlation analysis, partial correlation analysis and lag analysis were used to explore the change rule of NDVI during the growing season (May to October) and its relationship with climate in North China and the adjacent areas in the past 33 years. The results showed that the average growing season NDVI increased from 0.44 in the 1980s to 0.49 in the 2010s. NDVI in the growing season increased rapidly in the central part of the research area, but decreased in the northwest desert area. The increase of NDVI in the growing season of the research area was benefited from the increase of temperature and precipitation, and the influence of precipitation was greater. NDVI of the research area was positively correlated with the temperature in most areas. Except for the southeastern part of the study area, NDVI and precipitation had strong positive correlation. At 15day resolution, the response of NDVI to temperature in the growing season in most areas did not have obvious lag or was lagged in one period (15 days), and the response to precipitation was lagged about 1–2 periods (15–30 days). Therefore, in general, vegetation growth in North China and the adjacent areas responded more rapidly to temperature than precipitation. Key words temporal and spatial pattern; climatic factors; NDVI; wavelet analysis; time lag; Northern China