The turning point in vegetation decline in the Northern Hemisphere driven by hydroclimatic extremes

Abstract

Extreme climate events such as droughts and heatwaves significantly impact the stability of ecosystem function and are expected to intensify in the future. The mid-high latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere (23.5° to 90°N) exhibit pronounced seasonality and are highly sensitive to climate variations. However, further research is needed to understand the vegetation decline and its changing trends driven by extreme hydroclimatic and their compound events in this region. This study, based on multi-source data including NDVI, LAI, and GPP from 1982 to 2015 as vegetation growth indicators, amid to identify vegetation decline during the growing season and explore its temporal trends, and to further reveal the seasonal response. The research supported the importance of drought and high temperature compared to extreme wet and cold conditions. Due to the high frequency, wide impact and long duration of impact, independent low SM dominated the cumulative vegetation decline, followed by low SM and high VPD compound events. High VPD caused stronger negative impacts on vegetation growth than high T and that it was more strongly coupled to SM. We further found a turning point in vegetation decline. Because of the significant increase in VPD and its enhanced coupling with low SM, low SM and its compound events, especially SM- & VPD+ & T+ compound events, led to a significant enhancement of the vegetation decline after about the 21st century. Furthermore, the sensitivity of vegetation growth to extreme hydroclimatic has also significantly increased, with stronger intensity of vegetation decline. Seasonally, early growing season vegetation was more vulnerable (with the strongest continuous decline) due to experiencing the longest duration of negative impacts, while summer vegetation was more sensitive to extreme hydroclimatic, with the strongest intensity. Notably, compound events of high VPD and low SM primarily affected summer vegetation growth. Additionally, there was a significant lag time in vegetation response to extreme hydroclimatic, especially to high VPD and high T. In over half of the regions, the vegetation response to high T and high VPD had a lag time exceeding two months, which may be associated with seasonal legacy. In the context of global warming, further investigation is needed to explore the inter-seasonal connections. This research significantly contributes to a deeper understanding of ecosystem responses to extremes hydroclimatic and its future changes.