Recent climate variability and its impact on precipitation,temperature, and vegetation dynamics in the Lancang River headwater area of China

The alpine ecosystem is one of the most fragile ecosystems threatened by global climate change. The impact of climate variability on the vegetation dynamics of alpine ecosystems has become important in global change studies. In this study, spatially explicit gridded data, including the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land-surface temperature (LST) product (MOD11A1/A2), the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) rainfall product (3B43), and MODIS net primary productivity (NPP) product (MOD17A3), together with meteorological observation data, were used to explore the spatio-temporal pattern of climate variability and its impact on vegetation dynamics from 2000 to 2012 in the Lancang River headwater area. We found that the variation patterns of LST, precipitation, and NPP in the study area showed remarkable spatial differences. From the northwest to the southeast the spatial variation of average annual LST exhibited a decreasing–increasing–decreasing–increasing pattern. At the same time, most of the study area exhibited an increasing LST during the growing season. The annual precipitation increased in the semi-arid northern part, whereas it decreased in the semi-humid southern part. The precipitation variability during the growing season has a pattern similar to the annual precipitation variability. Although the majority of the regions have seen an NPP increase from 2000 to 2012, the responses of the vegetation to the varied climate factors were spatially heterogeneous. The alpine–subalpine meadows in the high-altitude areas were more sensitive to climate variability in the growing season. It is argued that satellite remote-sensing products have great potential in investigating the impact of climate variability on vegetation dynamics at the finer scale, especially for the Lancang River headwater area with complex surface heterogeneity.