2. Prof. Geoffrey Henebry

Land surface phenologies are the spatio-temporal-spectral patterns in upwelling radiation that vegetated landscapes manifest when observed seasonally using remote sensing. LSPs are related to–but distinct from—the phenologies of specific plants or vegetation communities observed at ground level. Here we explore the opportunities in using LSPs to characterize grassland dynamics to reveal interannual variation to weather, disturbance responses, and land use changes in arid and semi-arid montane landscapes in the Central and Inner Tien Shan ranges of Kyrgyzstan. We focus on the LSPs extracted from the dense spatio-temporal time series collected by VENµS during 2018-2020 at the “NARYN” site as well as LSPs from longer time series of Landsat VNIR and MODIS TIR data collected across the first two decades of the 21st century. Comparing the LSPs detected at different spatial resolutions, temporal durations, and ecological zones enable us to understand both the insights available from LSPs and the limitations to interpretation of LSPs.