Results

Creating a change detection difference map highlighted water bodies in the region that had dried up and been replaced by vegetation.

High value change points in the NDVI difference map tended to occur where these bogs disappeared.
Shown to the left is the NDVI change map highlighting these points with the 2016 vegetation coverage on right.

2016 was definitely a warmer year than 1999.
Note the temperature color legend as values needed to be different for both years in order to better see differences in 1999.
A change detection difference map was applied to these temperature maps.
It allowed for us to see which areas were increasing more than others.

1999 Temperature map displayed to the left.
Temperature maps for both 2016 and 1999 provided insight into growth trends in the area for these two years.
Vegetation experienced different growth rates based on what temperature classification is found itself growing within.

Conclusion

After applying the water body mask to both temperature images, we performed a change analysis on the water body temperatures. We saw greater temperature increases for inland bodies of water than nearshore. The temperature change difference map is overlaid on the NDVI difference map for the years 1999 and 2016. Despite the temperature increasing more inland, the vegetation experienced less growth than the nearshore vegetation where it was colder. The reason for this may be that as overall temperature increases, the nearshore permafrost is melting much more than before and allows for much more new vegetation growth than inland areas where vegetation competes for space. The inland vegetation reaches a peak of growth while the nearshore vegetation has more ability to grow. If temperature continues to rise in this region, eventually the nearshore vegetation will be capped at this peak just like the inland vegetation and the inland graminoid vegetation growth will resemble the nearshore vegetation growth. This will result in the maroon inland color moving out towards shore gradually.

Overall, there was a positive increase in vegetation in the entire region.

Google Sites

Report abuse