Accelerated rise in wildfire carbon emissions from Arctic continuous permafrost.

Wildfires over permafrost put perennially frozen carbon at risk. However, wildfire emissions from biomass burning over the diverse range of permafrost regions and their share in global wildfire emissions have not been revealed. The results showed a dramatic increase in wildfire carbon emissions from permafrost regions over the period 1997-2021.

Delayed Antarctic melt season reduces albedo feedback.

Antarctica's response to climate change varies greatly both spatially and temporally. Surface melting impacts mass balance and also lowers surface albedo. We use a 43-year record (from 1978 to 2020) of Antarctic snow melt seasons from space-borne microwave radiometers with a machine-learning algorithm to show that both the onset and the end of the melt season are being delayed.

Divergent effects of intensified precipitation on primary production in global drylands.

Amplification of hydrological cycle under warming climate is anticipated to result in intensified precipitation characterized by fewer, more intense events and correspondingly longer dry intervals between events, even without major changes in annual total precipitation. Vegetation gross primary production (GPP) in drylands is highly responsive to intensified precipitation, however, how intensified precipitation influences GPP in global drylands is not well understood. Based on multiple satellite datasets from 2001 to 2020 and in-situ measurements, we investigated the effects of intensified precipitation on global drylands GPP under diverse annual total precipitation along the bioclimate gradient.

Protected areas provide thermal buffer against climate change.

Climate change is pushing temperatures beyond the thermal tolerance of many species. Whether protected areas (PAs) can serve as climate change refugia for biodiversity has not yet been explored. We find that PAs of natural (seminatural) vegetation effectively cool the land surface temperature, particularly the daily maximum temperature in the tropics, and reduce diurnal and seasonal temperature ranges in boreal and temperate regions, as compared to nonprotected areas that are often disturbed or converted to various land uses.

Irrigation plays significantly different roles in influencing hydrological processes in two breadbasket regions.

Agriculture is a major water user, especially in dry and drought-prone areas that rely on irrigation to support agricultural production. In recent years, the over-extraction of groundwater, exacerbated by climate change, population growth, and intensive agricultural irrigation, has led to a drop in water levels and influenced the hydrological cycle. Understanding changes in hydrological processes is essential for pursuing water sustainability.

Warming enhances dominance of vascular plants over cryptogams across northern wetlands.

Climate warming causes profound effects on structure and function of wetland ecosystem, thus affecting regional and global hydrological cycles and carbon budgets. However, how wetland plants respond to warming is still poorly understood. Here, we synthesized observations from 273 independent sites to explore responses of northern wetland plants to warming.

Wetland Heterogeneity Determines Methane Emissions: A Pan-Arctic Synthesis.

Methane (CH) emissions from pan-Arctic wetlands provide a potential positive feedback to global warming. However, the differences in CH emissions across wetland types in these regions have not been well understood. We synthesized approximately 9000 static chamber CH measurements during the growing season from 83 sites across pan-Arctic regions.

Scale matters in understanding the complexity of Amazon fires: A response to the Editor.

The Amazon Basin is experiencing climate change, altered hydrological cycles, and forest loss. The processes causing increased fires are complex, and therefore cannot be attributed to climate change or human-induced deforestation alone. Here, we show why the Amazon fires must be understood across spatial scales within the regional coupled system.

Much stronger tundra methane emissions during autumn freeze than spring thaw.

Warming in the Arctic has been more apparent in the non-growing season than in the typical growing season. In this context, methane (CH ) emissions in the non-growing season, particularly in the shoulder seasons, account for a substantial proportion of the annual budget. However, CH emissions in spring and autumn shoulders are often underestimated by land models and measurements due to limited data availability and unknown mechanisms.

Climate regime shift and forest loss amplify fire in Amazonian forests.

Frequent Amazonian fires over the last decade have raised the alarm about the fate of the Earth's most biodiverse forest. The increased fire frequency has been attributed to altered hydrological cycles. However, observations over the past few decades have demonstrated hydrological changes that may have opposing impacts on fire, including higher basin-wide precipitation and increased drought frequency and severity.

Urban warming advances spring phenology but reduces the response of phenology to temperature in the conterminous United States.

Urbanization has caused environmental changes, such as urban heat islands (UHIs), that affect terrestrial ecosystems. However, how and to what extent urbanization affects plant phenology remains relatively unexplored. Here, we investigated the changes in the satellite-derived start of season (SOS) and the covariation between SOS and temperature ( ) in 85 large cities across the conterminous United States for the period 2001-2014.

Seasonal and interannual variations in carbon fluxes in East Asia semi-arid grasslands.

Semiarid regions have substantial interannual variation in carbon exchange between terrestrial ecosystem and atmosphere but the diverse responses of carbon fluxes to climate variability are poorly known. We compared carbon exchange processes and the responses to environmental factors in a meadow steppe at Tongyu (TY) and a typical steppe at Maodeng (MD) using long-term continuous eddy covariance measurements. TY precipitation was 25% greater than MD.

Future soil moisture and temperature extremes imply expanding suitability for rainfed agriculture in temperate drylands.

The distribution of rainfed agriculture, which accounts for approximately ¾ of global croplands, is expected to respond to climate change and human population growth and these responses may be especially pronounced in water limited areas. Because the environmental conditions that support rainfed agriculture are determined by climate, weather, and soil conditions that affect overall and transient water availability, predicting this response has proven difficult, especially in temperate regions that support much of the world's agriculture. Here, we show that suitability to support rainfed agriculture in temperate dryland climates can be effectively represented by just two daily environmental variables: moist soils with warm conditions increase suitability while extreme high temperatures decrease suitability.

ENSO elicits opposing responses of semi-arid vegetation between Hemispheres.

Semi-arid ecosystems are key contributors to the global carbon cycle and may even dominate the inter-annual variability (IAV) and trends of the land carbon sink, driven largely by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The linkages between dynamics of semi-arid ecosystems and climate at the hemispheric scale however are not well known. Here, we use satellite data and climate observations from 2000 to 2014 to explore the impacts of ENSO on variability of semi-arid ecosystems, using the Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition method.

Climate change reduces extent of temperate drylands and intensifies drought in deep soils.

Drylands cover 40% of the global terrestrial surface and provide important ecosystem services. While drylands as a whole are expected to increase in extent and aridity in coming decades, temperature and precipitation forecasts vary by latitude and geographic region suggesting different trajectories for tropical, subtropical, and temperate drylands. Uncertainty in the future of tropical and subtropical drylands is well constrained, whereas soil moisture and ecological droughts, which drive vegetation productivity and composition, remain poorly understood in temperate drylands.

Climate change-induced vegetation shifts lead to more ecological droughts despite projected rainfall increases in many global temperate drylands.

Drylands occur worldwide and are particularly vulnerable to climate change because dryland ecosystems depend directly on soil water availability that may become increasingly limited as temperatures rise. Climate change will both directly impact soil water availability and change plant biomass, with resulting indirect feedbacks on soil moisture. Thus, the net impact of direct and indirect climate change effects on soil moisture requires better understanding.

Evaluating spatial-temporal dynamics of net primary productivity of different forest types in northeastern China based on improved FORCCHN.

An improved individual-based forest ecosystem carbon budget model for China (FORCCHN) was applied to investigate the spatial-temporal dynamics of net primary productivity of different forest types in northeastern China. In this study, the forests of northeastern China were categorized into four ecological types according to their habitats and generic characteristics (evergreen broadleaf forest, deciduous broadleaf forest, evergreen needleleaf forest and deciduous needleleaf forest). The results showed that distribution and change of forest NPP in northeastern China were related to the different forest types.

Visual range trends in the Yangtze River Delta Region of China, 1981-2005.

Visual range (VR) data from 1981 to 2005 were examined for 20 meteorological monitoring sites in the Yangtze River Delta Region of China. Cumulative percentile analysis was used to construct VR trend. The 25-yr average domain-average 50% VR was approximately 21.

Vegetation greening in the Canadian Arctic related to decadal warming.

This study is presented within the context that climate warming and sea-ice decline has been occurring throughout much of the Arctic over the past several decades, and that terrestrial ecosystems at high latitudes are sensitive to the resultant alterations in surface temperatures. Results are from analyzing interannual satellite records of vegetation greenness across a bioclimate gradient of the Canadian Arctic over the period of 1982-2006. Here, we combine multi-scale sub-pixel analysis and remote sensing time-series analysis to investigate recent decadal changes in vegetation greenness along spatial gradients of summer temperature and vegetation.

[Simulation of carbon stocks of forest ecosystems in Northeast China from 1981 to 2002].

Based on the forest carbon budget model for China FORCCHN, which had been improved through adding variables and modules of precipitation (rainfall and snowfall) intercepted by tree crown and of understory and litter, the spatiotemporal distribution pattern of carbon stocks of forest ecosystems in Northeast China from 1981 to 2002 were simulated. The results showed that from 1981 to 2002, the forest ecosystems in Northeast China played a role of carbon sink, and the total carbon stock was about 12.37 Pg C x a(-1), of which, the stock of vegetation and soil was 4.