Elevational Movement of Vegetation Greenness on the Tibetan Plateau: Evidence from the Landsat Satellite Observations during the Last Three Decades

The Tibetan Plateau, the highest plateau in world, has experienced strong climate warming during last few decades. greater increase of temperature at higher elevations may have impacts on vertical movement vegetation activities plateau. Although satellite-based observations explored this issue, these were normally provided by coarse satellite data with a spatial resolution more than hundreds meters (e.g., GIMMS and MODIS), which could lead to serious mixed-pixel effects analyses. In study, we employed medium-spatial-resolution Landsat NDVI (30 m) 1990–2019 investigated relationship between elevation-dependent changes six mountainous regions Plateau. Particularly, focused elevational greenness isoline clarify whether moves upward past three decades because warming. Results show that greening occurred all Increasing temperatures caused middle high (>4000 but led downward lower for except Nyainqentanglha. Furthermore, sensitivity from positive value negative decreasing elevations, suggesting growth is strongly regulated other factors such as water availability. As result, showed about 59% pixels. Moreover, increased slope angles over regions, influence terrain activities. Our analyses improve understandings diverse response