I am working on a collaborative project funded through the Yale Climate and Energy Institute titled, “Global warming impacts on CT salt marsh ecosystems and consequent effects on salt marsh vulnerability to sea level rise“ The PI is Melinda Smith, and CO PI’s are Peter Raymond, Ellen Thomas, Alex Felson, and Karen Seto. There is a remote sensing aspect of the project which expands on work done by Yong Zhao in one of Karen Seto’s classes.
For the project Yong used MODIS derived 16-day NDVI composites and Timesat software to derive phenology characteristics from 2000-2009 for several CT marshes. He then compared the phenology parameters with temperature and precipitation data to detect correlation. This project looks to expand the geographic extent of Yong’s work to 13 well studied salt marshes dispersed on the East Coast of the United States. By comparing the phenologic parameters of marshes dispersed across different climatic zones, the project aims to predict how marsh phenology in CT may change in response to climate change.