RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Summer soil drying exacerbated by earlier spring greening of northern vegetation
JF Science Advances
JO Sci Adv
FD American Association for the Advancement of Science
SP eaax0255
DO 10.1126/sciadv.aax0255
VO 6
IS 1
A1 Lian, Xu
A1 Piao, Shilong
A1 Li, Laurent Z. X.
A1 Li, Yue
A1 Huntingford, Chris
A1 Ciais, Philippe
A1 Cescatti, Alessandro
A1 Janssens, Ivan A.
A1 Peñuelas, Josep
A1 Buermann, Wolfgang
A1 Chen, Anping
A1 Li, Xiangyi
A1 Myneni, Ranga B.
A1 Wang, Xuhui
A1 Wang, Yilong
A1 Yang, Yuting
A1 Zeng, Zhenzhong
A1 Zhang, Yongqiang
A1 McVicar, Tim R.
YR 2020
UL http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/1/eaax0255.abstract
AB Earlier vegetation greening under climate change raises evapotranspiration and thus lowers spring soil moisture, yet the extent and magnitude of this water deficit persistence into the following summer remain elusive. We provide observational evidence that increased foliage cover over the Northern Hemisphere, during 1982–2011, triggers an additional soil moisture deficit that is further carried over into summer. Climate model simulations independently support this and attribute the driving process to be larger increases in evapotranspiration than in precipitation. This extra soil drying is projected to amplify the frequency and intensity of summer heatwaves. Most feedbacks operate locally, except for a notable teleconnection where extra moisture transpired over Europe is transported to central Siberia. Model results illustrate that this teleconnection offsets Siberian soil moisture losses from local spring greening. Our results highlight that climate change adaptation planning must account for the extra summer water and heatwave stress inherited from warming-induced earlier greening.