Liu et al. (2025) Cumulative and Lagged Drought Effects Shape Start and End of Season on the Mongolian Plateau

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

Identification

• Journal: Forests
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-12-04
• Authors: Yilin Liu, Yu Wang, Maolin Li, Qi Shi, Xinyu Yang, Bin Chi, Long Ji, Qiang Yu, Buyanbaatar Avirmed, Orgilbold Myangan, Ganbold Bayanmunkh, Dambadarjaa Naranbat
• DOI: 10.3390/f16121814

Research Groups

Not specified in the provided text.

Short Summary

This study investigated the temporal depth of drought influence on dryland phenology across the Mongolian Plateau, revealing that spring green-up is delayed by multi-month winter–spring moisture deficits (6–9 months prior), while dormancy is advanced by near-term summer–autumn dryness (1–2 months prior), with varying sensitivities across ecoregions.

Objective

• To resolve the temporal depth of drought influence on the start and end of season (phenology) at regional scales across the Mongolian Plateau.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Mongolian Plateau, analyzed at 500 meter pixel resolution.
• Temporal Scale: 2001–2020 (20 years) for phenological analysis; drought influence tested with month-wise lags up to 12 months.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: A phenology-anchored framework linking multi-timescale Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) directly to the month of each phenological event.
• Data sources: Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) kNDVI (kernel Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) at 500 meter resolution; multi-timescale SPEI.

Main Results

• Phenology exhibits a clear north–south gradient across the Mongolian Plateau, with weak long-term shifts relative to large interannual variability.
• Drought influences phenology through two distinct pathways with asymmetric timescales:
  • Multi-month winter–spring moisture deficits delay spring green-up (Start of Season, SOS), with the strongest sensitivity to antecedent drought occurring approximately 6 to 9 months prior.
  • Summer–autumn dryness advances dormancy (End of Season, EOS), which is primarily governed by near-term moisture over the previous 1 to 2 months.
• Responses to drought differ among ecoregions, with deserts and desert steppes exhibiting the highest sensitivity, while forests and alpine meadows are less responsive.
• These asymmetric timescales imply that prolonged moisture deficits can postpone spring emergence into the following year, whereas short-term deficits truncate the current growing season, potentially offsetting warming-driven extensions of growing-season length.

Contributions

• Provides a novel regional-scale understanding of the temporal depth and asymmetric multi-timescale impacts of drought on dryland phenology.
• Identifies distinct antecedent drought timescales governing spring green-up and autumn dormancy, which was previously poorly resolved.
• Offers insights for improving model forecasts of dryland carbon–water dynamics by incorporating phenology-anchored, multi-timescale drought indicators.
• Informs monitoring and adaptation strategies in the most water-limited ecoregions.

Funding

Not specified in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Liu2025Cumulative,
  author = {Liu, Yilin and Wang, Yu and Li, Maolin and Shi, Qi and Yang, Xinyu and Chi, Bin and Ji, Long and Yu, Qiang and Avirmed, Buyanbaatar and Myangan, Orgilbold and Bayanmunkh, Ganbold and Naranbat, Dambadarjaa},
  title = {Cumulative and Lagged Drought Effects Shape Start and End of Season on the Mongolian Plateau},
  journal = {Forests},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.3390/f16121814},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/f16121814}
}