Numerical simulation of the effects of global warming on vegetation in Asia

Abstract

The response of vegetation to global warming is closely related to human living environment, and uncertainty in understanding the response remains. This study aims to investigate the effects of CO2, temperature and precipitation changes under global warming on natural vegetation in Asia. The biophysical/dynamic vegetation model SSiB4/TRIFFID was employed to perform numerical experiments under different climate scenarios for Asia using the Princeton global forcing dataset (1948–2006). The results showed that precipitation and CO2 were the key factors for vegetation growth. The effect of temperature on natural vegetation varied among the study regions. Generally, an increase in temperature was conducive to vegetation growth in eastern Asia, but not in the arid and semi-arid areas of western Asia. In arid and semi-arid areas or in the vicinity of desert, the forcing effects of temperature, precipitation and CO2 were more remarkable, which led to a noticeable change in the area of bare land. In terms of the distribution of vegetation species, the above forcing had a greater impact on shrubs, C3 grasses and C4 plants, but less of an impact on broadleaf and coniferous forest. It was also found that, although there was a notable positive correlation between precipitation and vegetation leaf area index in northern high latitudes, the vegetation cover did not increase with precipitation, which was countered by the negative effect of surface cooling in summer.