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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Mississippi State, Mississippi » Crop Science Research Laboratory » Genetics and Sustainable Agriculture Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #358499
Title: The effects of asymmetric diurnal warming on vegetation growth of the Tibetan Plateau over the past three decades

Author
item XUA, HAOMING - Henan University
item LI, AINONG - Chinese Academy Of Sciences
item Feng, Gary
item LI, YANG - Henan University
item QIN, YAOCHEN - Henan University
item LEI, GUANGBIN - Chinese Academy Of Sciences
item CUI, YAOPING - Henan University

Submitted to: Sustainability
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/5/2018
Publication Date: 4/7/2018
Citation: Xua, H., Li, A., Feng, G.G., Li, Y., Qin, Y., Lei, G., Cui, Y. 2018. The effects of asymmetric diurnal warming on vegetation growth of the Tibetan Plateau over the past three decades. Sustainability. 10:1103-1116.

Interpretive Summary: Temperatures over the past three decades have exhibited an asymmetric warming pattern between the night and day throughout the Tibetan Plateau. The Tibetan Plateau has experienced a warming trend as whole, and the increasing rate of Tmin over the past three decades was 1.7 times that of Tmax during the growing season across the study area. The results of this study suggested that the variation in vegetation responses to diurnal temperature changes is important for understanding the changes in vegetation photosynthetic activity in a warming world. As future climate data show the potential for asymmetric warming in global land surface climates, our results provide a reference for assessing and predicting vegetation responses to global climate change.

Technical Abstract: The present study utilized analyses of a remote sensing-based vegetation index and meteorological data from 1982–2015 to evaluate how vegetation growth has responded to daytime and night-time warming at the regional, biome, and pixel scales. We found a persistent increase in the growing seasonal mean minimum temperature (Tmin) and maximum temperature (Tmax) over the Tibetan Plateau during 1982–2015, whereas the rate of increase of Tmin was 1.7 times that of Tmax during the day. The partial correlation between Tmax and NDVI was significantly positive across 25.6% of the Tibetan Plateau, mainly corresponding to wetter and colder areas. Only 1.1% of the region exhibited significant negative correlations, mainly across semi-arid and arid regions. After removing the influence of Tmax, precipitation, and solar radiation, 7.8% of the Tibetan Plateau exhibited significantly positive correlations, mainly within the high-cold steppe and meadow steppe areas. Additionally, 8.3% of the area showed significant negative correlations, mostly in montane steppe zone or wet forest regions, which exhibits a more complex behavior. Daytime warming had a significantly positive influence on crops (41.5%), followed by forest (34.6%), shrublands (23%), other vegetation types (18.8%), alpine meadow (18.7%), and alpine steppe (12.7%) in descending order, while night-time warming had a negative influence on crops (39%), followed by forest (26%), other vegetation types (20.5%), alpine steppe (19.9%), shrublands (10.9%), alpine meadow (10%), and in descending order.