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Greening of the Earth and its drivers

Zhu, Zaichun ; Piao, Shilong ; Myneni, Ranga B. ; Huang, Mengtian ; Zeng, Zhenzhong ; Canadell, Josep G. ; Ciais, Philippe ; Sitch, Stephen LU ; Friedlingstein, Pierre and Arneth, Almut LU , et al. (2016) In Nature Climate Change 6(8). p.791-795
Abstract

Global environmental change is rapidly altering the dynamics of terrestrial vegetation, with consequences for the functioning of the Earth system and provision of ecosystem services. Yet how global vegetation is responding to the changing environment is not well established. Here we use three long-term satellite leaf area index (LAI) records and ten global ecosystem models to investigate four key drivers of LAI trends during 1982-2009. We show a persistent and widespread increase of growing season integrated LAI (greening) over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area, whereas less than 4% of the globe shows decreasing LAI (browning). Factorial simulations with multiple global ecosystem models suggest that CO2 fertilization... (More)

Global environmental change is rapidly altering the dynamics of terrestrial vegetation, with consequences for the functioning of the Earth system and provision of ecosystem services. Yet how global vegetation is responding to the changing environment is not well established. Here we use three long-term satellite leaf area index (LAI) records and ten global ecosystem models to investigate four key drivers of LAI trends during 1982-2009. We show a persistent and widespread increase of growing season integrated LAI (greening) over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area, whereas less than 4% of the globe shows decreasing LAI (browning). Factorial simulations with multiple global ecosystem models suggest that CO2 fertilization effects explain 70% of the observed greening trend, followed by nitrogen deposition (9%), climate change (8%) and land cover change (LCC) (4%). CO2 fertilization effects explain most of the greening trends in the tropics, whereas climate change resulted in greening of the high latitudes and the Tibetan Plateau. LCC contributed most to the regional greening observed in southeast China and the eastern United States. The regional effects of unexplained factors suggest that the next generation of ecosystem models will need to explore the impacts of forest demography, differences in regional management intensities for cropland and pastures, and other emerging productivity constraints such as phosphorus availability.

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publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Nature Climate Change
volume
6
issue
8
pages
5 pages
publisher
Nature Publishing Group
external identifiers
  • scopus:84979756336
ISSN
1758-678X
DOI
10.1038/nclimate3004
language
English
LU publication?
no
id
43812197-49f9-4bca-bf51-ada3a5d12ed6
date added to LUP
2020-11-19 23:17:05
date last changed
2022-04-26 21:59:51
@article{43812197-49f9-4bca-bf51-ada3a5d12ed6,
  abstract     = {{<p>Global environmental change is rapidly altering the dynamics of terrestrial vegetation, with consequences for the functioning of the Earth system and provision of ecosystem services. Yet how global vegetation is responding to the changing environment is not well established. Here we use three long-term satellite leaf area index (LAI) records and ten global ecosystem models to investigate four key drivers of LAI trends during 1982-2009. We show a persistent and widespread increase of growing season integrated LAI (greening) over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area, whereas less than 4% of the globe shows decreasing LAI (browning). Factorial simulations with multiple global ecosystem models suggest that CO<sub>2</sub> fertilization effects explain 70% of the observed greening trend, followed by nitrogen deposition (9%), climate change (8%) and land cover change (LCC) (4%). CO<sub>2</sub> fertilization effects explain most of the greening trends in the tropics, whereas climate change resulted in greening of the high latitudes and the Tibetan Plateau. LCC contributed most to the regional greening observed in southeast China and the eastern United States. The regional effects of unexplained factors suggest that the next generation of ecosystem models will need to explore the impacts of forest demography, differences in regional management intensities for cropland and pastures, and other emerging productivity constraints such as phosphorus availability.</p>}},
  author       = {{Zhu, Zaichun and Piao, Shilong and Myneni, Ranga B. and Huang, Mengtian and Zeng, Zhenzhong and Canadell, Josep G. and Ciais, Philippe and Sitch, Stephen and Friedlingstein, Pierre and Arneth, Almut and Cao, Chunxiang and Cheng, Lei and Kato, Etsushi and Koven, Charles and Li, Yue and Lian, Xu and Liu, Yongwen and Liu, Ronggao and Mao, Jiafu and Pan, Yaozhong and Peng, Shushi and Peuelas, Josep and Poulter, Benjamin and Pugh, Thomas A.M. and Stocker, Benjamin D. and Viovy, Nicolas and Wang, Xuhui and Wang, Yingping and Xiao, Zhiqiang and Yang, Hui and Zaehle, Sönke and Zeng, Ning}},
  issn         = {{1758-678X}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{08}},
  number       = {{8}},
  pages        = {{791--795}},
  publisher    = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
  series       = {{Nature Climate Change}},
  title        = {{Greening of the Earth and its drivers}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3004}},
  doi          = {{10.1038/nclimate3004}},
  volume       = {{6}},
  year         = {{2016}},
}