Responses of vegetation growth to climate change over the Tibetan Plateau from 1982 to 2018

Abstract

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) plays a critical role in Earth’s climate system and is highly sensitive to global warming. However, comprehensive analysis of the interaction between various climatic factors and vegetation growth across the TP is still limited. Using daily normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) series interpolated from the 16-day satellite measurements and climatic data during 1982–2018, we investigated the spatiotemporal changes in growing season NDVI (NDVIGS) and associated climatic drivers over the TP and analyzed the responses of NDVIGS to climatic drivers for different vegetation types. Our results show that NDVIGS of the TP as a whole exhibits a significant rising trend (0.0011 year−1; P < 0.01) from 1982 to 2018. However, trends in NDVIGS show apparent spatial heterogeneity over the TP with higher growth rates in forests (trend = 0.012 de−1; P < 0.01) and shrubs (trend = 0.009 de−1; P < 0.01) in the east and southeast than in alpine steppe (trend = 0.003 de−1; P < 0.01) and alpine meadow (trend = 0.006 de−1; P < 0.01) in the west and north. Air temperature, precipitation, and VPD serve as the dominant climatic factor affecting the NDVIGS trends in 62%, 19%, and 12% of the TP, respectively. Additionally, climatic factors show differential impacts on NDVIGS among different vegetation types. Air temperature has a predominantly positive correlation with NDVIGS for all vegetation types, while precipitation has a negative impact on plant growth in the eastern humid forest region but a generally positive impact in the other areas. Our results also highlight that the effect of VPD on NDVIGS varies among different vegetation types. These findings contribute to a systematic understanding of the possible mechanisms underlying the responses of vegetation growth to various climatic drivers across the TP.