Project

The global response of surface air temperature to vegetation changes and its underlying biophysical mechanism

Code
3E024518
Duration
01 October 2018 → 30 September 2021
Funding
Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO)
Research disciplines
  • Natural sciences
    • Atmospheric sciences
    • Physical geography and environmental geoscience
    • Atmospheric sciences, challenges and pollution
  • Medical and health sciences
    • Biophysics
    • Biophysics
    • Biophysics
Keywords
vegetation change
 
Project description

Global warming and the rise of carbon dioxide have a profound impact on global vegetation. Recently, a large number of documents have proven that the vegetation in the world is greening.
At the same time, changes in vegetation will also have an impact on the surface temperature, such as absorbing carbon dioxide, and radiation. This greening of the Earth will virtually increase the carbon sequestration, potentially considered as the key instruments to mitigate the climate change. Yet, the benefit of the increased vegetation capability to absorb anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions on climate could be either enhanced or counteracted by other factors, such as absorb more or less radiation than before.
Therefore, my goal is to first detect how the vegetation in the world has changed (better or worse?). Then, I will examine how the global temperature changes and how the vegetation affects the temperature.
I will use remotely sensed imageries to monitor vegetation changes. A quantitative way of representing the interactions of surface temperature and vegetation will be applied to simulate (analyze) and illustrate the interactive processes.
The findings will provide the latest reference for climate negotiations and how to manage the vegetation changes.