Orth et al. (2025) Regional Emergence of Water‐Related Browning in a Greening World

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Identification

• Journal: Global Change Biology
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-12-01
• Authors: René Orth, Jasper Denissen, Josephin Kroll, O Sungmin, Ana Bastos, Wantong Li, Diego G. Miralles, Melissa Ruiz‐Vásquez, Anne J. Hoek van Dijke, Andrew F. Feldman, Mirco Migliavacca, Lan Wang‐Erlandsson, Benjamin D. Stocker, Adriaan J. Teuling, Hui Yang, Chunhui Zhan, Xin Yu
• DOI: 10.1111/gcb.70620

Research Groups

Not specified in the provided text.

Short Summary

This study reveals that declining water availability and increasing atmospheric water demand are key drivers of regional browning trends in tropical carbon sinks, contributing significantly to inter-annual variability in Leaf Area Index, with Earth system models showing variable agreement.

Objective

• To demonstrate that declining water availability and rising atmospheric water demand contribute significantly to regional browning trends and inter-annual variability in Leaf Area Index (LAI) in tropical carbon sink regions.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Tropical regions historically acting as prominent carbon sinks.
• Temporal Scale: Recent decades (multi-decadal trends), inter-annual variability.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Earth system models (multi-model ensemble).
• Data sources: Observational data for Leaf Area Index (LAI), water availability, atmospheric water demand, land cover change, and climate extremes; likely satellite and ground-based observations.

Main Results

• Declining water availability and rising atmospheric water demand have coincided with regional browning trends in tropical carbon sinks over recent decades.
• Both water availability and atmospheric water demand are important contributors to inter-annual variability in Leaf Area Index (LAI) in these regions.
• Earth system models, in their multi-model mean, largely reproduce the observed spatial extent of browning and concurrent water changes, but individual model results show strong differences.

Contributions

• Identifies declining water availability and rising atmospheric water demand as critical, emerging drivers of vegetation browning in tropical carbon sinks, challenging the assumption of universal greening.
• Provides a new observational constraint for the development and improvement of Earth system models, particularly concerning vegetation-water interactions.
• Emphasizes the necessity for enhanced monitoring and integration of observation-based water availability trends in future vegetation analyses and model development.

Funding

Not specified in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Orth2025Regional,
  author = {Orth, René and Denissen, Jasper and Kroll, Josephin and Sungmin, O and Bastos, Ana and Li, Wantong and Miralles, Diego G. and Ruiz‐Vásquez, Melissa and Dijke, Anne J. Hoek van and Feldman, Andrew F. and Migliavacca, Mirco and Wang‐Erlandsson, Lan and Stocker, Benjamin D. and Teuling, Adriaan J. and Yang, Hui and Zhan, Chunhui and Yu, Xin},
  title = {Regional Emergence of Water‐Related Browning in a Greening World},
  journal = {Global Change Biology},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1111/gcb.70620},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.70620}
}