Cooling outweighs warming across phenological transitions in the Northern Hemisphere

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Li, Yizhuo; Meng, Lin; Richardson, Andrew D.; Lee, Xuhui; Menzel, Annette; Mao, Jiafu; Diehl, Jen L.; Wang, Anzhi
• 署名单位: Chinese Academy of Sciences; Shenyang Institute of Applied Ecology, CAS; Chinese Academy of Sciences; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, CAS; Vanderbilt University; Northern Arizona University; Yale University; Technical University of Munich; Technical University of Munich; United States Department of Energy (DOE); Oak Ridge National Laboratory
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-10521
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2501844122
• 发表日期: 2025-09-16
• 关键词: land-surface temperature; CLIMATE-CHANGE; growing-season; deciduous forest; long-term; green-up; afforestation; feedbacks; cover; deforestation

摘要

Vegetation phenology, i.e., seasonal biological events such as leaf-out and leaf-fall, regulates local climate through biophysical processes like evapotranspiration (ET) and albedo. However, the net surface temperature impact of these processes-whether ET cooling or albedo-induced warming predominates-and how the dominance changes across phenological transitions and regions remains poorly understood. Here, we investigated the effects of vegetation foliage on daytime land surface temperature (LST) following six phenological transitions, spanning from the start of season to end of season, in deciduous and mixed forests across the mid-to high-latitude Northern Hemisphere during 2013-2021 using multiple satellite products and ground observations. We quantified vegetation effect as the difference between observed LST and LST estimates from the Annual Temperature Cycle (ATC) model, representing a no-foliage scenario. We found that vegetation-induced cooling consistently outweighs warming following all phenological transitions except for the end of the season. Cooling intensity increased with vegetation greenness, ranging from 1.0 +/- 0.5 degrees C (mean +/- 0.15 SD) in 59% of forests after the start of the season (SOS) to 6.1 +/- 0.8 degrees C in 89% of forests following the onset of maturity, before declining toward the end of the season. Over half of the regions experiencing cooling showed intensification of surface cooling with climate warming, suggesting an amplified vegetation-mediated cooling under future climate change. The findings provide a more precise understanding of the role of vegetation in modulating climate at the intraseasonal scale, highlighting the importance of integrating phenological impacts into climate adaptation strategies and Earth system modeling.