Gong et al. (2025) Spatiotemporal Variability of Vegetation Productivity Responses to Meteorological Factors in China's Drylands Over Two Decades

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-11-18
• Authors: Haixing Gong, Guoyin Wang, Renhe Zhang, Guoxing Chen, Xiaoyan Wang, Tiantao Cheng
• DOI: 10.1029/2025jd043614

Research Groups

Not available in the abstract.

Short Summary

This study developed a machine learning model to attribute gross primary productivity (GPP) trends in China's drylands from 2001 to 2020 to meteorological factors, revealing that declining solar radiation caused a GPP decrease largely offset by increased precipitation, with minor temperature effects due to seasonal compensations, leading to a slight overall GPP decline.

Objective

• To quantify the contributions of temperature, solar radiation, and precipitation to GPP trends and their regional variations in China's drylands, considering dynamic seasonal responses.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: China's drylands, with specific regional analysis for the Tibetan Plateau, North China, and Northeast China.
• Temporal Scale: 2001 to 2020 (20 years).

Methodology and Data

• Models used: A machine learning model developed to invert GPP.
• Data sources: Meteorological data including temperature, solar radiation, and precipitation.

Main Results

• Declining solar radiation caused an average GPP decrease of 0.13 gC m⁻² yr⁻¹.
• Increased precipitation contributed to an average GPP increase of 0.11 gC m⁻² yr⁻¹, partially offsetting the radiation-induced loss.
• Temperature effects were relatively minor due to seasonal compensations, with spring and autumn warming enhancing photosynthesis but summer warming suppressing vegetation growth.
• The combined effects of these three meteorological factors led to a slight decline of approximately 0.03 gC m⁻² yr⁻¹ in annual mean GPP across China's drylands.
• Spatially, GPP variations reflected the dominance of temperature in the Tibetan Plateau (warming enhanced GPP year-round due to low baseline temperature), precipitation in North China (due to pronounced wetting trends), and solar radiation in Northeast China (due to significant decline and radiation sensitivity of forest canopies).

Contributions

• Enhances the understanding of climate-GPP relationships in dryland ecosystems by attributing GPP trends to meteorological factors at seasonal and regional scales, highlighting the varying dominance of these factors across different dryland regions.

Funding

Not available in the abstract.

Citation

@article{Gong2025Spatiotemporal,
  author = {Gong, Haixing and Wang, Guoyin and Zhang, Renhe and Chen, Guoxing and Wang, Xiaoyan and Cheng, Tiantao},
  title = {Spatiotemporal Variability of Vegetation Productivity Responses to Meteorological Factors in China's Drylands Over Two Decades},
  journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1029/2025jd043614},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025jd043614}
}