Phenology shift from 1989 to 2008 on the Tibetan Plateau: an analysis with a process-based soil physical model and remote sensing data

Phenology is critical to ecosystem carbon quantification, and yet has not been well modeled considering both aboveground and belowground environmental variables. This is especially true for alpine and pan-arctic regions where soil physical conditions play a significant role in determining the timing of phenology. Here we examine how the spatiotemporal pattern of satellite-derived phenology is related to soil physical conditions simulated with a soil physical model on the Tibetan Plateau for the period 1989–2008. Our results show that spatial patterns and temporal trends of phenology are parallel with the corresponding soil physical conditions for different study periods. On average, 1 °C increase in soil temperature advances the start of growing season (SOS) by 4.6 to 9.9 days among Climatic Change DOI 10.1007/s10584-013-0722-7 Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10584-013-0722-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Z. Jin : Q. Zhuang Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA Z. Jin (*) Ecological Sciences and Engineering, Interdisciplinary Graduate Program, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA e-mail: [email protected] Q. Zhuang Department of Agronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA J.-S. He : Y. Shi Department of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Science, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China J.-S. He Key Laboratory of Adaptation and Evolution of Plateau Biota, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining 810008, China T. Luo Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100085, China Author's personal copy