Wetness or Warmth, Which is the Dominant Factor for Vegetation?

The wetness, a function of precipitation and temperature etc, and the warmth, a function of temperature, are the dominant factor for global vegetation distribution. This paper employs the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), warmth index (WAI), and wetness index (WEI), and focuses on an essential climate-vegetation relationship at global scale. The NDVI was acquired from ‘Twenty-year global 4-minute AVHRR NDVI dataset.’ The WEI is defined as the fraction of the precipitation to the potential evaporation. The WAI was calculated by accumulating the monthly mean temperature of the portion exceeded 5$^{\circ}C$ throughout the year. Meteorological data for the WEI and WAI calculation were obtained from the ISLSCP CD-ROM. All analyses were conducted for 1 ${\times}$ 1 degree grid box on the terrestrial area of the Earth, and on annual value basis averaged in 1987 and 1988. The result of analyses demonstrated that there are two regimes in their relations, that is, a regime in which NDVIs vary depending on the WEI, and a regime in which NDVIs vary depending on the WAI. These two regimes appeared to correspond to the wetness dominant and warmth dominant vegetation, respectively. The geographical distributions of two regimes were mapped. Most of the world vegetation is categorized into wetness dominant, while warmth dominant vegetation is seen in the high-latitude area mainly to the north of 60$^{\circ}$N in the Northern Hemisphere and high-altitude areas.