The December 2002 draft version of the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map (CAVM) defines the spatial extent of dominant vegetation in terms of the dominant plant growth forms and physiognomy. Mapped vegetation extends south to the treeline, which varies with longitude. Spatial coverage is 60°N to 90°N, -180° W to 180°W. The map is available in Adobe PDF format, Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format, and ESRI Shapefile format. The December 2002 draft map is available here. Please refer to the Alaska Geobotany Center Web site for the future final version.
Alaska Geobotany Center. Draft Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map. December 2002. Scale 1:4,000,000. Boulder, CO: National Snow and Ice Data Center/World Data Center for Glaciology. Digital Media.
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| Data format | The Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map (CAVM) is available in the following formats:
|
| Spatial coverage | Mapped vegetation extends south to the treeline, which varies with longitude. Spatial coverage is 60 to 90°N, -180 to 180°W. |
| File naming convention |
ggd639_cavmside1_021224.pdf ggd639_cavm_veg.shp: ESRI Shapefile geometry cavm_veg.avl: ArcView legend file |
| File size |
ggd639_cavmside1_021224.pdf: 18.25 MB ggd639_cavm_veg.shp: 8.5 MB |
| Procedures for obtaining data | The December 2002 draft map is available on this CD-ROM. Please refer to the Alaska Geobotany Center Web site for the future final version. |
1. Contacts and Acknowledgments
2. Detailed Data Description
3. References and Related Publications
4. Document Information
Donald (Skip) A. Walker
University of Alaska, Fairbanks
Fairbanks, AK USA 99775-6780
NSIDC User Services
National Snow and Ice Data Center
CIRES, 449 UCB
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0449 USA
phone: +1 303.492.6199
fax: +1 303.492.2468
form: Contact NSIDC User Services
e-mail: nsidc@nsidc.org
This project was funded by the National Science Foundation Arctic Transitions in the Land-Atmosphere System (ATLAS) project (OPP-9732076).
The December 2002 draft version of the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map (CAVM) shows dominant vegetation, described in terms of the dominant plant growth forms and physiognomy of the dominant vegetation in each mapped polygon. In an ecological sense, physiognomy is the structure or appearance of a vegetation community, or the frequency distribution of plant life form -- a generic plant type such as tree, shrub, perennial herb with buds, perenial herb with a tuber, or annual plant.
The number of canopy layers, degree of cover, and distribution patterns of species within vegetation may also be used to define a physiognomic unit. The CAVM also uses physiographic, soil moisture, and substrate chemistry to define units. Any given physiognomic unit may contain different species in different parts of the globe. See Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map Abstract for more details on the CAVM project. The PDF versions of the CAVM provide details of vegetation classification.
The December 2002 draft map is available on this CD-ROM. File names with "cavmside1" refer to the map, while file names with "cavmside2" refer to the production details of the map. Please refer to the Alaska Geobotany Center for the future final version of the CAVM map.
The Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map (CAVM) is available in the following formats:
The 600 x 800 and 1200 x 1600 pixel PNG files are suitable for on-screen viewing. The 2250 x 3000 PNG file will produce a 7.5" x 10" image when printed at 300 dpi.
The Shapefile has one attribute: vegunit. This is a floating point value from 1 to 19 that refers to vegetation units described in the file "vegunits.dbf." Three of the vegunits are for nunataks, glacier ice, and lakes. The rest of the vegunits describe vegetation. Detailed descriptions of each unit indicate if the unit is water logged, dry, soil type, or other.
All maps were converted from ArcInfo interchange format to ESRI Shapefiles using the ARCSHAPE command. When necessary, field names in attribute tables were changed so that they conformed to the 10-character limit for field names in dBase. Field names in attribute tables longer than seven characters were shortened, and the attributes "cavm_veg#" and "cavm_veg-id" were changed to "cavmveg_" and "cavmveg_id.">
The Shapefile is in a Lambert Azimuthal projection. The following details were generated using the Arc command "describe":
Projection LAMBERT AZIMUTHAL Datum NONE Units METERS Spheroid DEFINED Major Axis 6370997.00000 Minor Axis 0.00000 Parameters: radius of the sphere of reference 6370997.00000 longitude of center of projection -180 0 0.00 latitude of center of projection 90 0 0.000 false easting (meters) 0.00000 false northing (meters) 0.00000 |
ggd639_cavmside1_021224.pdf
ggd639_cavmside1_021224_1200x1600.png
ggd639_cavmside1_021224_2250x3000.png
ggd639_cavmside1_021224_600x800.png
ggd639_cavmside2_021224.pdf
ggd639_cavmside2_021224_1200x1600.png
ggd639_cavmside2_021224_2250x3000.png
ggd639_cavmside2_021224_600x800.png
ggd639_cavm_veg.shp: ESRI Shapefile geometry
ggd639_cavm_veg.shx: ESRI Shapefile feature geometry index
ggd639_cavm_veg.dbf: ESRI Shapefile attributes
cavm_veg.avl: ArcView legend file
vegunits.dbf: dBase file of "vegunit" descriptions
pantone.shd: ESRI Shapefile
ggd639_cavmside1_021224.pdf: 18.25 MB
ggd639_cavmside1_021224_600x800.png: 133 KB
ggd639_cavmside1_021224_1200x1600.png: 429 KB
ggd639_cavmside1_021224_2250x3000.png: 1.16 MB
ggd639_cavmside2_021224.pdf: 9.4 MB
ggd639_cavmside2_021224_600x800.png: 185 KB
ggd639_cavmside2_021224_1200x1600.png: 613 KB
ggd639_cavmside2_021224_2250x3000.png: 725 KB
ggd639_cavm_veg.shp: 8.5 MB
ggd639_cavm_veg.shx: 33 KB
ggd639_cavm_veg.dbf: ESRI Shapefile attributes: 278 KB
cavm_veg.avl: 9 KB
vegunits.dbf: 5 KB
pantone.shd: 106 KB
Mapped vegetation extends south to the treeline, which varies with longitude. Spatial coverage is 60 to 90°N, -180 to 180°W.
Walker, D.A. 1999. An integrated vegetation mapping approach for northern Alaska (1:4M scale). International Journal of Remote Sensing 20:2895-2920.
May 2003
May 2003
http://nsidc.org/data/docs/fgdc/ggd639_vegetation_arctic/index.html
