Continuous but diverse advancement of spring-summer phenology in response to climate warming across the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

• Published in: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
• Main Authors: Zheng, Zhoutao, Zhu, Wenquan, Chen, Guangsheng, Jiang, Nan, Fan, Deqin, Zhang, Donghai
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; permafrost
• Online Access: http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1324175; https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1324175; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2016.04.012

The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) is more vulnerable and sensitive to climate change than many other regions worldwide because of its high altitude, permafrost geography, and harsh physical environment. As a sensitive bio-indicator of climate change, plant phenology shift in this region has been intensively studied during the recent decades, primarily based on satellite-retrieved data. However, great controversy still exists regarding the change in direction and magnitudes of spring-summer phenology. Based on a large number (11,000+ records) of long-term and continuous ground observational data for various plant species, our study intended to more comprehensively assess the changing trends of spring-summer phenology and their relationships with climatic change across the QTP. The results indicated a continuous advancement (–2.69 days decade –1 ) in spring-summer phenology from 1981 to 2011, with an even more rapid advancement during 2000–2011 (–3.13 days decade –1 ), which provided new field evidence for continuous advancement in spring-summer phenology across the QTP. However, diverse advancing rates in spring-summer phenology were observed for different vegetation types, thermal conditions, and seasons. The advancing trends matched well with the difference in sensitivity of spring-summer phenology to increasing temperature, implying that the sensitivity of phenology to temperature was one of the major factors influencing spring-summer phenology shifts. Besides, increased precipitation could advance the spring-summer phenology. As a result, the response of spring-summer phenology to temperature tended to be stronger from east to west across all species, while the response to precipitation showed no consistent spatial pattern.