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Biophysical impacts of northern vegetation changes on seasonal warming patterns.

ABSTRACT: The seasonal greening of Northern Hemisphere (NH) ecosystems, due to extended growing periods and enhanced photosynthetic activity, could modify near-surface warming by perturbing land-atmosphere energy exchanges, yet this biophysical control on warming seasonality is underexplored. By performing experiments with a coupled land-atmosphere model, here we show that summer greening effectively dampens NH warming by -0.15 ± 0.03 °C for 1982-2014 due to enhanced evapotranspiration. However, greening generates weak temperature changes in spring (+0.02 ± 0.06 °C) and autumn (-0.05 ± 0.05 °C), because the evaporative cooling is counterbalanced by radiative warming from albedo and water vapor feedbacks. The dwindling evaporative cooling towards cool seasons is also supported by state-of-the-art Earth system models. Moreover, greening-triggered energy imbalance is propagated forward by atmospheric circulation to subsequent seasons and causes sizable time-lagged climate effects. Overall, greening makes winter warmer and summer cooler, attenuating the seasonal amplitude of NH temperature. These findings demonstrate complex tradeoffs and linkages of vegetation-climate feedbacks among seasons.

SUBMITTER: Lian X

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9262912 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Biophysical impacts of northern vegetation changes on seasonal warming patterns.

Lian Xu X Jeong Sujong S Park Chang-Eui CE Xu Hao H Li Laurent Z X LZX Wang Tao T Gentine Pierre P Peñuelas Josep J Piao Shilong S

Nature communications 20220707 1

The seasonal greening of Northern Hemisphere (NH) ecosystems, due to extended growing periods and enhanced photosynthetic activity, could modify near-surface warming by perturbing land-atmosphere energy exchanges, yet this biophysical control on warming seasonality is underexplored. By performing experiments with a coupled land-atmosphere model, here we show that summer greening effectively dampens NH warming by -0.15 ± 0.03 °C for 1982-2014 due to enhanced evapotranspiration. However, greening ...[more]

PMID: 35798743

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Dataset Information

Biophysical impacts of northern vegetation changes on seasonal warming patterns.

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Biophysical impacts of northern vegetation changes on seasonal warming patterns.

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