BOSTON UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Dissertation DETECTING AND MODELING LARGE-SCALE INTERACTIONS BETWEEN VEGETATION, PRECIPITATION, AND TEMPERATURE OVER TEMPERATE-SEMIARID AND BOREAL CLIMATE REGIMES

Terrestrial vegetation exerts an important influence on climate variability via the exchange of mass, energy, and momentum between the land surface and the atmosphere. This dissertation uses statistical techniques and stochastic models to investigate largescale vegetation/climate interactions in remotely-sensed vegetation datasets and observational climate records. Vegetation feedbacks on climate variability over the North American Grasslands are evaluated by the methodology of Granger causality, which examines statistical causal relationships in a coupled system. Results indicate that positive vegetation anomalies earlier in the growing season significantly “Granger cause” lower rainfall (and higher temperatures) later in summer. Coupled with the positive influence of precipitation on