Droughts are becoming more severe and widespread across Europe and are significantly impacting forest productivity. Monitoring this by using satellite data may not be identifying these impacts accurately.
A novel study reveals that commonly used vegetation indices from MODIS satellite data fail to accurately track drought-induced declines in the gross primary productivity (GPP) of Forests in Europe. GPP is the fundamental measure of how much carbon forests absorb through photosynthesis. Some indicators may remain depressed long after trees themselves have recovered, creating a decoupling between what we observe from space and what's actually happening in forests.
Climb-Forest researchers from institutions in Sweden, Germany, and Switzerland analyzed data from 18 forest sites across Europe. They tested 12 different MODIS variables—including nine vegetation indices (VIs)—against ground-truth measurements from ICOS and FLUXNET eddy covariance towers.
Find out more about this vital research by exploring the paper below.
