Work

Widespread global enhancement of vegetation resistance to compound dry-hot events due to anthropogenic climate change

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Compound Dry-Hot (CDH) events have become more frequent under recent global warming, posing a serious threat to terrestrial vegetation. However, the role of anthropogenic climate change (ACC) signals in the characteristics of CDH events, and the consequences to vegetation vulnerability, are still poorly understood. Based on the meteorological and Leaf Area Index (LAI) simulation data from four global climate models (GCMs) in CMIP6 under the “NAT” (natural) and “ALL” (natural and anthropogenic) experiments, this study investigates the ACC impact on the historical (1982-2014) changes in CDH occurrence (with different intensities and durations) and identifies the anthropogenic signals in the CDH-induced vegetation vulnerability changes at the global scale using the tried-and-tested Fraction of Attributable Risk method. The results show that ACC not only increases the frequency and duration of CDH over most global regions, also simultaneously causes a globally widespread increase in vegetation resistance to CDH (particularly in the Southern Hemisphere), which reduces the probability (risk) of vegetation loss (defined as LAI≤40th percentile) by 7.2~19.6% on global average. Moreover, vegetation resistance generally increases with CDH intensity globally, due to the expanded vegetation coverage and the alleviation of high-temperature inhibitory effects on vegetation growth. We also find that ACC increases the vulnerability of Tundra and Taiga to CDH only in northern high-latitudes mainly due to the decreased vegetation coverage, but enhances the grassland resistance to CDH to a lesser extent than forests due to the greater physiological burden brought by CDH to grasslands than forests.

Source: Ecological Indicators

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113880