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Research Article

Spring temperature change and its implication in the change of vegetation growth in North America from 1982 to 2006

Xuhui Wang, Shilong Piao, Philippe Ciais, Junsheng Li, Pierre Friedlingstein, Charlie Koven, and Anping Chen
  1. aDepartment of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Science, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China;
  2. bLaboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, Unité Mixte de Recherche Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique–Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique–Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Batiment 709, CE L’Orme des Merisiers, Gif-sur-Yvette, F-91191, France;
  3. cChinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing 100012, China;
  4. dQuantifying and Understanding the Earth System (QUEST), Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Wills Memorial Building, Queen’s Road, Bristol BS8 1RJ, United Kingdom;
  5. eEarth Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720; and
  6. fDepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544

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PNAS first published January 10, 2011; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1014425108
Xuhui Wang
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Shilong Piao
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  • For correspondence: slpiao@pku.edu.cn lijsh@craes.org.cn
Philippe Ciais
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Junsheng Li
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  • For correspondence: slpiao@pku.edu.cn lijsh@craes.org.cn
Pierre Friedlingstein
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Charlie Koven
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Anping Chen
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  1. Edited by Robert E. Dickinson, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, and approved December 6, 2010 (received for review September 27, 2010)

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Abstract

Understanding how vegetation growth responds to climate change is a critical requirement for projecting future ecosystem dynamics. Parts of North America (NA) have experienced a spring cooling trend over the last three decades, but little is known about the response of vegetation growth to this change. Using observed climate data and satellite-derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data from 1982 to 2006, we investigated changes in spring (April–May) temperature trends and their impact on vegetation growth in NA. A piecewise linear regression approach shows that the trend in spring temperature is not continuous through the 25-year period. In the northwestern region of NA, spring temperature increased until the late 1980s or early 1990s, and stalled or decreased afterwards. In response, a spring vegetation greening trend, which was evident in this region during the 1980s, stalled or reversed recently. Conversely, an opposite phenomenon occurred in the northeastern region of NA due to different spring temperature trends. Additionally, the trends of summer vegetation growth vary between the periods before and after the turning point (TP) of spring temperature trends. This change cannot be fully explained by summer drought stress change alone and is partly explained by changes in the trends of spring temperature as well as those of summer temperature. As reported in previous studies, summer vegetation browning trends have occurred in the northwestern region of NA since the early 1990s, which is consistent with the spring and summer cooling trends in this region during this period.

  • climate change
  • spring cooling

Footnotes

  • 1To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: slpiao{at}pku.edu.cn or lijsh{at}craes.org.cn.
  • Author contributions: S.P. designed research; X.W., S.P., P.C., J.L., P.F., C.K., and A.C. performed research; X.W. analyzed data; and X.W., S.P., P.C., J.L., P.F., C.K., and A.C. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1014425108/-/DCSupplemental.

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Spring temperature change and its implication in the change of vegetation growth in North America from 1982 to 2006
Xuhui Wang, Shilong Piao, Philippe Ciais, Junsheng Li, Pierre Friedlingstein, Charlie Koven, Anping Chen
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Jan 2011, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1014425108

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Spring temperature change and its implication in the change of vegetation growth in North America from 1982 to 2006
Xuhui Wang, Shilong Piao, Philippe Ciais, Junsheng Li, Pierre Friedlingstein, Charlie Koven, Anping Chen
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Jan 2011, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1014425108
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