Comparative evaluation of vegetation greenness trends over circumpolar Arctic tundra using multi-sensors satellite datasets

Abstract

The circumpolar arctic tundra, located at Earth’s highest latitudes, is extremely sensitive to climate warming. Studies on arctic greening, based on satellite data and field measurements, show discrepancies due to differences in spatial resolution across datasets (e.g., Landsat 30-m, MODIS 250-m, and AVHRR GIMMS 8 km). Research on scale effects has been limited, mostly focusing on small areas rather than the entire 7.11 million km² arctic tundra. Our study addresses this by mapping scale effects across the entire tundra using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) measurements. Findings reveal: (1) Landsat data provides detailed spatial trends, identifying 18.7% of the area as significantly greening, whereas GIMMS data detects more browning due to spectral mixing; (2) GIMMS underestimates the greening to browning ratio at 2.2:1, compared to Landsat and MODIS ratios of 14.1:1 and 15.1:1, respectively; (3) Over 93% agreement exists between Landsat and MODIS or GIMMS trends, with discrepancies in limited areas. This highlights the importance of high-resolution data and field studies for accurately understanding vegetation trends across the arctic tundra.