Greening of the Earth and its drivers
(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.
(Less)
- author
- publishing date
- 2016-08-01
- 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}}, }