More Springtime NDVI Observations

 I recently took a driving tour from Prescott to Cottonwood and back.  Most areas have dried out already.  This post reviews the phenology, NDVI greenness maps, and rainfall patterns in the area.

Verde Valley  - wildflowers, hedgehog cactus flowers

2,437 32 AGDD 

501 50 AGDD

I-17 and General Crook  - mesquite just starting to flower, grasses dry

2,202 32 AGDD 

394  50 AGDD

Verde Valley native desert grassland with scattered juniper.  Some wildflowers are present, but most areas are dry.

Dugas - mesquite just starting to flower, grasses dry

2,414 

462 50 AGDD

169 and I-17 - Mesquite still leafing out, some grasses still green

2,224  32 AGDD 

400 50 AGDD

Hills near Dugas with dry invasive annual grasses.  Few to no flowers present.

89A at base of Mingus mountain grasses greening up, still early in the growing season

1,773  32 AGDD 

89A at base of Mingus mountain powerline ROW showing early spring green up of cool season grasses.

NDVI

DroughtView is still showing anomalously green areas between Cordes and Flower Pot along I-17, but these hills around Dugas are already quite dry (see image above).

Most recent (4/6-4/21) NDVI difference map

It matches the NDVI variance from that time period.  At this time there was still anomalous green up around Dugas, for example.  

MODIS NDVI (Near Real Time 8 Day) 4/6-4/21

DroughtView also shows straight NDVI, with a nice mask that only shows areas that are green, and has much more recent data.  For example, the current Near Real time NDVI shows greenness only in the mountains and areas of mesquite that have greened up, shows brown over much of the grasslands.  This is what I observed driving through the area: it has already browned out.  This tool allows visualize of current state of greenness on the landscape.

The difference a few weeks can make for springtime greenness.  Note the difference along I-17 from Cordes to Flower Pot.

MODIS NDVI (Near Real Time 8 Day) 4/22-5/7

QuickDRI (updated 5/6) is still showing "improvement" in drought stress around Congress and South of Cordes lakes, but NDVI (above) shows no greenness there.  I think it could be mesquite leaf out, but interesting that NDVI NRT doesn't show it.  Both maps continue to agree that the area around Yava still looks good.  QuickDRI shows "stress intensification" in the Bradshaw and Mingus  mountain areas that NDVI NRT shows as green.  Both could be true.  QuickDRI shows "improvement" in Chino Valley, an area that NDVI NRT doesn't show any greenness.  This area is still somewhat greening up, so QuickDRI may be more accurate there.

QuickDRI (updated 5/6)

Phenology and Accumulated Precipitation

Most areas are below normal 90 day precipitation, except a small area around Perkinsville.  This area doesn't show up as being anomalously green, or having any greenness in NDVI NRT, or having lower stress in QuickDRI.

Feb-May rainfall

Based on AGDD, it is possible that this area is still too early in Spring and needs more time to green up.  

The area around Congress has received some moisture in the last 60 days, but it may not be enough to compensate for the low rainfall in February, or the high temperatures and complete lack of precipitation over the last 30 days.  

March-May rainfall

April rainfall

Christmas in Orlando, FL

Carbon Considerations

How much CO2 does flying emit compared with cars, and how much would it cost to offset that?

The average airplane flight emits about 0.4lb of CO2 per passenger mile. Compare that to a decent 20mpg car, which emits about 1lb of C02 per mile. Of course, if you carpool, you can divide that by the number of passengers. This confirms most calculations I have seen that show that flying gets about 70 mpg per passenger (source) However, because the effect of CO2 at that altitude is greater, a correction factor gives an effective mpg of 35mpg per passenger, still better than most cars, but not if you carpool. If your flight isn't completely booked, your share of the CO2 emitted would be even greater. In general, about 20lb CO2 are emitted per gallon of gas (source)

So, driving or flying 2,000 miles would emit 800 lb and 2,000 lb, respectively. But for two people, the figures for flying would become 1,600 lb, versus 2,000 lb driving. Let's just say that it's about a ton.

What would it take to offset these emissions?

To offset one ton carbon costs about $15. A number of companies will do this. "Afforestation of crop or pasture land is estimated to have the potential to sequester
between 2.2 and 9.5 metric tons of CO2 per acre per year. Reforestation is estimated at 1.1 to 7.7
metric tons of CO2 per acre per year." (source: Congressional Research Service) So a fraction of an acre could sequester the carbon from a cross-country airplane flight.


Interestingly, the cost to plant an acre of trees is $250-$2,000/acre (average: $500). According to this analysis, if afforestation (greatest potential to sequester carbon) cost $200/acre it could be profitable at a carbon price of $21/ton.

Pinacate Biosphere Reserve

Nature is more than the sum of its parts -- it possesses a magic unifying principle, spark of life, existence beyond and apart and aloof from the simplifying, pattern-making mind of man.


This was a landscape alive: humming, buzzing, chirping, ...
What Mexico looked like before fast food, trash, and grazing: undisturbed, incredibly luscious and beautiful.


Lava flows jumbled like bulk food; angular irregular boulders of roungly similar size tumble down toward Big Rock Wash, where a curious all-green tree called Palo Verde grows alongside the Elephant Tree (green under crinkling off gold paper) and the Ironwood Tree --...an alive, verdanmt buzzing blooming profusion: "a vibratory place". WIthout illusion or pretense - yet still hard to see -- perhaps things are the wrong size, strange shapes in complicated, yet ordered landscapes. Only a few species of grass. WIldflowers everywhere - if you look. (I had to crunch a patch to lie down and write this).


At the (dry) stream banks (marked by whitened rocks) grow bush-nightshade and desert lavender, not holding back rock erosion, intermixed. At intervals crazy flowers bloom: hibiscus... High scree slope of creosote, burro bush , brittlebrush, jr. elephant trees, ocotillo. The rocks are dry, brittle: some pummice. B.O. Flower. Mallow. Stickleaf Mentzelia. Dahlia.



Soil (between jammed gravel jammed between boulders) is tan and almost entirely clay plus a few sub-sandgrain particles. THe parent rock is basalt w/ quartz crystals scattered in. Black rock remains hot to the touch after the shadow has replaced sun. Probably dehydrated, discombobulated, waiting in the shadows, feeling the ever-moving air breeze cool my skin. A vulture circled me, left, came back. When the wind leaves, the buzzing rises, busy coevolution.













------------------
Map of Tinajas (water holes) in the Sierra Pinacate, prepared by Julian Hayden, archeologist.

Bahia Kino

St. David Cienega on San Pedro NCA

Magnificent view of the Whetstone Mountains from the Cienega parking lot:
Numerous springs in the Cienega and along the San Pedro:

Beautiful Cienega with grasses and rushes:


The San Pedro goes dry along here. Note the extensive tamarisk infestation, with cottonwoods in the background:
The Cienega can be almost impenetrable:

The Sub-Tropical Sonoran Desert

My goal for the winter is to explore the extent of my home ecosystem:The Sonoran Desert and its six subdivisions.

Upper Rio Grande Watershed: Rio de los Pinos to Conejos River

http://picasaweb.google.com/conorpro/CumbresAndToltecRioDeLosPinosWatershed

Upper Rio Grande Headwaters: Blanca Wetlands

More photos.

Upper Rio Grande Watershed: The Poso and Los Mogotes

"...driving across these llanos for days, solitary pinon and juniper gnarled and twisted and thickened, like baobobs almost, and the antelope / gazelle bounding away, outdoors dawn to dusk , khaki outfit, pith helmet, driving across the plains for days, looking at the summits; heading toward them but then it starts to rain and the mud becomes too thick: fishtailing across the road, saying 'I'm sorry' to all the plants, the erosion. Eventually, the sound of the engine turning off, the door opening, both feet sinking deep into the mud, the finality of the car door slamming in the sudden, rainy, darkness.

Alaska

Back in the Southwest (of the contiguous United States), land of dusty dry nosebleeds and clockwork sun and stars, time to reflect on Alaskan explorations...
on beyond Anchorage through the Kenai Penninsula....

A land of green grass!
When I arrived the dandylions were already blooming and when I left they'd all gone to seed. Winter had ended with May, but snow was still at sea level in Prince William Sound.

Welcome to Alaska!
I remember the first sunny day of summer, with all Anchorage turned out in force to sunbathe, run, and bike until midnight, when the sun briefly set behind the mountains to the North before rising again at 1:30am.

The old man who adumbrated another summerless year, the tourist who complained about "too many hicks and a general sense of wierdness".

Corinna, my Sackagawea in the land of Mignight sun, the final frontier, full of moose and bears and Giant Cabbage (skunk and otherwise) and pride in all of the above.

A disturbed landscape, the ecology still recovering from the Great Quake of ''64: the tsunami and land subsidence...

and the Great Oil Spill of '89....

...can be hard to believe in the context of awesome, untrammeled, wilderness.

But humans are ubiquitous. My first Alaskan Bear. (the second was flung, unceremoniously, out of a boat onto the beach where Corinna and I were having tea. The bloody carcass was butchered for its skin, paws, and gonads.)