Publication Date:
2019
Description:
Much research has examined the sensitivity of tropical terrestrial ecosystems to various
environmental drivers. The predictability of tropical vegetation greenness based on sea surface
temperatures (SSTs), however, has not been well explored. This study employed fine spatial
resolution remotely-sensed Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) and SST indices from tropical ocean
basins to investigate the predictability of tropical vegetation greenness in response to SSTs and
established empirical models with optimal parameters for hindcast predictions. Three evaluation
metrics were used to assess the model performance, i.e., correlations between historical observed
and predicted values, percentage of correctly predicted signs of EVI anomalies, and percentage of
correct signs for extreme EVI anomalies. Our findings reveal that the pan-tropical EVI was tightly
connected to the SSTs over tropical ocean basins. The strongest impacts of SSTs on EVI were
identified mainly over the arid or semi-a...