Changes in the net primary production of ecosystems across Western Europe from 2015 to 2022 in response to historic drought events.

Background: Ecosystem models are valuable tools to make climate-related assessments of change when ground-based measurements of water and carbon fluxes are not adequately detailed to realistically capture geographic variability. The Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach (CASA) is one such model based on satellite observations of monthly vegetation cover to estimate net primary production (NPP) of terrestrial ecosystems.

Results: CASA model predictions from 2015 to 2022 for Western Europe revealed several notable high and low periods in growing season NPP totals in most countries of the region.