Estimation of China’s Contribution to Global Greening over the Past Three Decades

Jing Peng, Fuqiang Yang, Li Dan and Xiba Tang
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Jing Peng: CAS Key Laboratory of Regional Climate-Environment for Temperate East Asia, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
Fuqiang Yang: CAS Key Laboratory of Regional Climate-Environment for Temperate East Asia, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
Li Dan: CAS Key Laboratory of Regional Climate-Environment for Temperate East Asia, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
Xiba Tang: Laboratory of Cloud-Precipitation Physics and Severe Storms (LACS), Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Beijing 100029, China

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 3, 1-16

Abstract: China’s contribution to global greening is regulated by increasing atmospheric CO 2 concentrations, climate change, and land use. Based on TRENDY project data, this study identified that the shifts in China’s contribution to the global leaf area index (LAI) trend strongly reduced during the warming hiatus, translating from 13.42 ± 26.45% during 1982–1998 into 7.91 ± 25.45% during 1999–2012. First, significant negative sensitivities of LAI to enhanced vapor pressure deficit (VPD), when only considering the climate effect derived from TRENDY models in China, were found to have shifted substantially after the late 1990s. However, globally, LAI had positive rather than negative responses to enhanced VPD. These opposing shifts in the response of LAI to enhanced VPD reduced the national contribution to global vegetation greening. Second, shifts in land-use change and their effects on the LAI trends in the two periods in China were accompanied by major changes in land cover and land management intensity, including forestry. Consequently, the contribution of land use in China reduced by −47.68% during the warming hiatus period, as compared with the warming period. Such a shift in the impact of land-use change on LAI simulated by ecosystem models might result from the models’ lack of consideration of conserving and expanding forests with the goal of mitigating climate change for China. Our results highlight the need for ecosystem models to reproduce the enhanced negative impact on global LAI and consider the shifts in man-made adaptation policies (e.g., forest management) to improve terrestrial ecosystem models in the future.

Keywords: leaf area index; vapor pressure deficit; climate change; land-use change; ecosystem model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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