Climate changes affect the growth of vegetation and photosynthesis

which can be represented byNDVI change.It is therefore very important to investigate the relationship between NDVI and climate.NDVI values can be used to characterize earth surface conditions regarding vegetation coverage

growth

typeand other variables.The change of vegetation at Chinese mainland and its relationship with temperature andprecipitation were studied on different geographic ecological zones in China using time lag cross-correlationanalysis and GIS based on GIMMS NDVI data set along with temperature and precipitation data from 188stations in Chinese mainland.It was found that in general

the temperature of mainland China increased

theprecipitation was reduced

and the vegetation coverage increased from 1982to 2000.The NDVI values of thecold temperature zone

temperate zone

north subtropical and central asian tropical zone decreased while theNDVI values of the other five ecological geographic zones increased.There is a significant correlation between NDVI and precipitation and temperature.The NDVI values of mainland China showed substantiallyspatial variability in lagging behind the variations of precipitation and temperature.