• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.57-72
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• 2022

In this paper, we aimed to examine the flowering dates of cherry blossom and the peak dates of maple leaves in South Korea, by the combination of temperature observation data from ASOS (Automated Surface Observing System) and NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) from MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer). The more recent years, the faster the flowering dates and the slower the peak dates. This is because of the impacts of climate change with the increase of air temperature in South Korea. By reflecting the climate change, our statistical models could reasonably predict the plant phenology with the CC (Correlation Coefficient) of 0.870 and the MAE (Mean Absolute Error) of 3.3 days for the flowering dates of cherry blossom, and the CC of 0.805 and the MAE of 3.8 for the peak dates of maple leaves. We could suppose a linear relationship between the plant phenology DOY (day of year) and the environmental factors like temperature and NDVI, which should be inspected in more detail. We found that the flowering date of cherry blossom was closely related to the monthly mean temperature of February and March, and the peak date of maple leaves was much associated with the accumulated temperature. Amore sophisticated future work will be required to examine the plant phenology using higher-resolution satellite images and additional meteorological variables like the diurnal temperature range sensitive to plant phenology. Using meteorological grid can help produce the spatially continuous raster maps for plant phenology.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.396-402
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• 2014

The spring season in Korea features a dynamic landscape with a variety of flowers such as magnolias, azaleas, forsythias, cherry blossoms and royal azaleas flowering sequentially one after another. However, the narrowing of south-north differences in flowering dates and those among the flower species was observed in 2014, taking a toll on economic and shared communal values of seasonal landscape. This study was carried out to determine whether the 2014 incidence is an outlier or a mega trend in spring phenology. Data on flowering dates of forsythias and cherry blossoms, two typical spring flower species, as observed for the recent 60 years in 6 weather stations of Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) indicate that the difference spanning the flowering date of forsythias, the flower blooming earlier in spring, and that of cherry blossoms that flower later than forsythias was 30 days at the longest and 14 days on an average in the climatological normal year for the period 1951-1980, comparing with the period 1981-2010 when the difference narrowed to 21 days at the longest and 11 days on an average. The year 2014 in particular saw the gap further narrowing down to 7 days, making it possible to see forsythias and cherry blossoms blooming at the same time in the same location. 'Cherry blossom front' took 20 days in traveling from Busan, the earliest flowering station, to Incheon, the latest flowering station, in the case of the 1951-1980 normal year, while 16 days for the 1981-2010 and 6 days for 2014 were observed. The delay in flowering date of forsythias for each time period was 20, 17, and 12 days, respectively. It is presumed that the recent climate change pattern in the Korean Peninsula as indicated by rapid temperature hikes in late spring contrastive to slow temperature rise in early spring immediately after dormancy release brought forward the flowering date of cherry blossoms which comes later than forsythias which flowers early in spring. Thermal time based heating requirements for flowering of 2 species were estimated by analyzing the 60 year data at the 6 locations and used to predict flowering date in 2014. The root mean square error for the prediction was within 2 days from the observed flowering dates in both species at all 6 locations, showing a feasibility of thermal time as a prognostic tool.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.153-159
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• 2008

The timing of the canopy phenology onset (CPO hereafter) indicates the initiation of the growing season, with rapid increases in exchange rates of carbon dioxide and water vapor between vegetation and atmosphere. The CPO is regarded as a potential indicator of ecosystem responses to global warming, but the CPO shows considerable spatial variation depending on the species composition and local temperature regime. at a given geographic location. In this study, we evaluated the utility of satellite observation data for detection of the timing of the CPO. Leaf area indices (LAI) obtained from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrora-diometer (MODIS) were utilized to detect and map the onset dates from 2001 to 2006. The reliability of MODIS-based onset dates was evaluated with ground measured cherry blossom flowering data from national weather stations. The MODIS onset dates preceded the observed flowering dates by 8 days and were linearly related with a correlation coefficient of 0.58 (p < 0.05). In spite of the coarse spatial (1 km) and temporal (8 days) resolutions of MODIS LAI, the MODIS-based onset dates showed reasonable ability to predict flowering dates.