Monitoring ENSO cycles and their impacts on crops in Argentina from NOAA-AVHRR satellite data

Early assessments and information on the evolution of weather conditions and impacts associated to the occurrences of El Nino/La Nina years are a major demand from the agricultural sector. Satellite observations have shown to be useful for regional monitoring of the environmental conditions, providing greater and on time spatially comprehensive coverage of the land surface characteristics than the one is possible to get from ground-based measurements. In this study, the capabilities of the data measured by the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer of the NOAA-9, 11 and 14 satellites were investigated for monitoring weather conditions and impact on crops growth, development and yield in the regional scale. Satellite-derived indices were applied to the agricultural area of Argentina and analyzed for La Nina 1988-89, 1995-96 and El Nino 1987-88, 1997-98 crop season conditions. Results from the analysis showed strong relationships between the indices and the weather conditions for each of the events, providing also an insight into the dynamics of the vegetation and into the responses of the agricultural crops. (C) 2002 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.