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Natural decadal variability of global vegetation growth in relation to major decadal climate modes

Lu, Zhengyao LU ; Chen, Deliang ; Wyser, Klaus ; Fuentes-Franco, Ramón ; Olin, Stefan LU ; Zhang, Qiong ; Wu, Mousong LU and Ahlström, Anders LU orcid (2023) In Environmental Research Letters 18(1).
Abstract

The ongoing climate change can modulate the behavior of global vegetation and influence the terrestrial biosphere carbon sink. Past observation-based studies have mainly focused on the linear trend or interannual variability of the vegetation greenness, but could not explicitly deal with the effect of natural decadal variability due to the short length of observations. Here we put the variabilities revealed by remote sensing-based global leaf area index (LAI) from 1982 to 2015 into a long-term perspective with the help of ensemble Earth system model simulations of the historical period 1850-2014, with a focus on the low-frequency variability in the global LAI during the growing season. Robust decadal variability in the observed and... (More)

The ongoing climate change can modulate the behavior of global vegetation and influence the terrestrial biosphere carbon sink. Past observation-based studies have mainly focused on the linear trend or interannual variability of the vegetation greenness, but could not explicitly deal with the effect of natural decadal variability due to the short length of observations. Here we put the variabilities revealed by remote sensing-based global leaf area index (LAI) from 1982 to 2015 into a long-term perspective with the help of ensemble Earth system model simulations of the historical period 1850-2014, with a focus on the low-frequency variability in the global LAI during the growing season. Robust decadal variability in the observed and modelled LAI was revealed across global terrestrial ecosystems, and it became stronger toward higher latitudes, accounting for over 50% of the total variability north of 40°N. The linkage of LAI decadal variability to major natural decadal climate modes, such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation decadal variability (ENSO-d), the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO), and the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO), was analyzed. ENSO-d affects LAI by altering precipitation over large parts of tropical land. The PDO exerts opposite impacts on LAI in the tropics and extra-tropics due to the compensation between the effects of temperature and growing season length. The AMO effects are mainly associated with anomalous precipitation in North America and Europe but are mixed with long-term climate change impacts due to the coincident phase shift of the AMO which also induces North Atlantic basin warming. Our results suggest that the natural decadal variability of LAI can be largely explained by these decadal climate modes (on average 20% of the variance, comparable to linear changes, and over 40% in some ecosystems) which also can be potentially important in inducing the greening of the Earth of the past decades.

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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; ; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
decadal variability, Earth system model, leaf area index, remote sensing, terrestrial ecosystem
in
Environmental Research Letters
volume
18
issue
1
article number
014033
publisher
IOP Publishing
external identifiers
  • scopus:85146487451
ISSN
1748-9318
DOI
10.1088/1748-9326/acacb4
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd.
id
37cf3cc2-4243-43f6-8d31-93903fd5ead0
date added to LUP
2023-08-31 16:11:42
date last changed
2023-09-18 12:31:07
@article{37cf3cc2-4243-43f6-8d31-93903fd5ead0,
  abstract     = {{<p>The ongoing climate change can modulate the behavior of global vegetation and influence the terrestrial biosphere carbon sink. Past observation-based studies have mainly focused on the linear trend or interannual variability of the vegetation greenness, but could not explicitly deal with the effect of natural decadal variability due to the short length of observations. Here we put the variabilities revealed by remote sensing-based global leaf area index (LAI) from 1982 to 2015 into a long-term perspective with the help of ensemble Earth system model simulations of the historical period 1850-2014, with a focus on the low-frequency variability in the global LAI during the growing season. Robust decadal variability in the observed and modelled LAI was revealed across global terrestrial ecosystems, and it became stronger toward higher latitudes, accounting for over 50% of the total variability north of 40°N. The linkage of LAI decadal variability to major natural decadal climate modes, such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation decadal variability (ENSO-d), the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO), and the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO), was analyzed. ENSO-d affects LAI by altering precipitation over large parts of tropical land. The PDO exerts opposite impacts on LAI in the tropics and extra-tropics due to the compensation between the effects of temperature and growing season length. The AMO effects are mainly associated with anomalous precipitation in North America and Europe but are mixed with long-term climate change impacts due to the coincident phase shift of the AMO which also induces North Atlantic basin warming. Our results suggest that the natural decadal variability of LAI can be largely explained by these decadal climate modes (on average 20% of the variance, comparable to linear changes, and over 40% in some ecosystems) which also can be potentially important in inducing the greening of the Earth of the past decades.</p>}},
  author       = {{Lu, Zhengyao and Chen, Deliang and Wyser, Klaus and Fuentes-Franco, Ramón and Olin, Stefan and Zhang, Qiong and Wu, Mousong and Ahlström, Anders}},
  issn         = {{1748-9318}},
  keywords     = {{decadal variability; Earth system model; leaf area index; remote sensing; terrestrial ecosystem}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{01}},
  number       = {{1}},
  publisher    = {{IOP Publishing}},
  series       = {{Environmental Research Letters}},
  title        = {{Natural decadal variability of global vegetation growth in relation to major decadal climate modes}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/acacb4}},
  doi          = {{10.1088/1748-9326/acacb4}},
  volume       = {{18}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}