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Harvard Forest REU Symposium Abstract 2012
- Title: Tracking Seasonal and Climatic Changes through Webcam Imagery
- Author: Sascha E Perry (Lincoln University of Missouri)
- Abstract:
Tracking seasonal variability in ecosystems has been an ongoing study, used to better understand how climate change will affect organisms. This field, better known as phenology, looks at the changes in the timing of organismal activities (e.g. flowering, migration) throughout the year. Specifically for our project, tree phenology was analyzed using webcam imagery. Webcam imagery has provided the science community with a new and optimal way, versus the traditional ways of human observation and large spatial coverage with limited temporal availability.We analyzed imagery from1879geo-located locations around the globe using the Archive of Many Outdoor Scenes (AMOS). All sites were classified based on their stability and amounts/presence of vegetation, which was shown through images taken over time spans of up to 5 years. Stable sites were then visually inspected for changes in view to extract the greenness chromatic coordinate (GCC), the percentage of green brightness to overall image brightness, within the vegetated area. Along with tracking the GCC, we were able to track the overall time series of these changes, specifically the spring green-up period and the brown-down of autumn. Performing this research will ultimately provide an alternativemethodology of studying tree phenology, to better understand how various organisms may respond to these warming trends, and assist in the prediction of ecosystem responses to ongoing changes in climate.
- Research Category: Group Projects
