Calibrating 2000-2020 MODIS and Landsat greening in Northwest Alaska with 1000 km of vegetation transect data and dendrochronology for tall shrubs.

The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on the planet. Satellite observations
have detected increases over time in the normalized difference vegetation index or “NDVI.”
Because NDVI is generally interpreted as a measure of vegetation productivity, these increases
in NDVI are called “greening.” To inform satellite observed greening from 2000-2020 in
Alaska’s western Brooks Range, we walked a 1000 km vegetation transect and collected shrub
growth samples. In collaboration with NASA Ames and Northern Arizona University’s (NAU)
Global Earth Observation & Dynamics of Ecosystems (GEODE) Laboratory, part of the NASA
Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) Field Campaign, I propose to apply these
novel on-the-ground datasets collected as part of an Alaska Pacific University field effort to
assess Landsat and MODIS trends in NDVI