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• de Jong, R
• Verbesselt, J
• Zeileis, A
• Schaepman, ME.
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• de Jong, R
• Verbesselt, J
• Zeileis, A
• Schaepman, ME.
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• de Jong, R
• Verbesselt, J
• Zeileis, A
• Schaepman, ME.

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Remote Sens. 2013, 5(3), 1117-1133; doi:10.3390/rs5031117

Article

Shifts in Global Vegetation Activity Trends

Rogier de Jong ^1,* , Jan Verbesselt ² , Achim Zeileis ³  and Michael E. Schaepman ¹

¹ Remote Sensing Laboratories, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland ² Laboratory of Geo-Information Science and Remote Sensing, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 3, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands ³ Department of Statistics, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck, Universitätsstrasse 15, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Received: 20 December 2012; in revised form: 14 February 2013 / Accepted: 21 February 2013 / Published: 1 March 2013

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Monitoring Global Vegetation with AVHRR NDVI3g Data (1981-2011))

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Abstract: Vegetation belongs to the components of the Earth surface, which are most extensively studied using historic and present satellite records. Recently, these records exceeded a 30-year time span composed of preprocessed fortnightly observations (1981–2011). The existence of monotonic changes and trend shifts present in such records has previously been demonstrated. However, information on timing and type of such trend shifts was lacking at global scale. In this work, we detected major shifts in vegetation activity trends and their associated type (either interruptions or reversals) and timing. It appeared that the biospheric trend shifts have, over time, increased in frequency, confirming recent findings of increased turnover rates in vegetated areas. Signs of greening-to-browning reversals around the millennium transition were found in many regions (Patagonia, the Sahel, northern Kazakhstan, among others), as well as negative interruptions—“setbacks”—in greening trends (southern Africa, India, Asia Minor, among others). A minority (26%) of all significant trends appeared monotonic.

Keywords: GIMMS v3G; vegetation activity; trend shifts; greening-to-browning reversal

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