You are here

Home

Harvard Forest >

Harvard Forest Symposium Abstract 2012

  • Title: Phenocam: A continental scale observatory for monitoring the phenology of terrestrial vegetation
  • Primary Author: Michael P Toomey (Not Specified)
  • Additional Authors: Andrew Richardson (Northern Arizona University)
  • Abstract:

    Plant phenology drives the timing, magnitude, and variability in biosphere-atmosphere exchanges but our understanding of phenological controls on carbon and water fluxes remains limited. Harvard Forest serves as an essential node in the Phenocam network (http://phenocam.unh.edu/webcam/) of digital cameras mounted on eddy covariance towers across multiple biomes. The Phenocam network yields a rich database of high frequency (1/2 hourly) imagery which can be used to closely monitor ecosystem phenology. Constructing time series of seasonal “greenness” allows evaluation of phenological control on daily and seasonal carbon/water uptake and rates of change in ecosystem productivity. For sites with multiple years of data, including Harvard Forest, we evaluate the role of environmental variables (precipitation, temperature and radiation) in predicting interannual phenological variability, accounting for differential responses among coexisting species. This study forms the foundation for current efforts using a global database of webcam imagery, the Archive of Many Outdoor Scenes (AMOS; http://amos.cse.wustl.edu/), to monitor and model ecosystem response to climate change across six continents.



  • Research Category: Forest-Atmosphere Exchange