ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Interdisciplinary Climate Studies
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1597553
This article is part of the Research TopicImpact of Climate Change on Carbon Sequestration in Terrestrial EcosystemView all articles
Differential impacts of compound dry-and humid-hot events on global vegetation productivity
Provisionally accepted
- Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
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The increasing frequency of compound heat events (CHEs), including compound dry-hot events (CDHEs) and compound humid-hot events (CHHEs), poses significant threats to terrestrial ecosystems. While previous studies have examined the independent and combined effects of drought and heat on vegetation productivity, the specific roles of CHHEs and the differential impacts of CDHEs and CHHEs remain poorly understood. Using Gross Primary Productivity (GPP) estimated from satellite-based near-infrared reflectance (NIRv), monthly meteorological data and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), this study calculated the Standardized Compound Event Indicator (SCEI) to quantify the severity of CHEs, and investigated the immediate and lagged effects of CDHEs and CHHEs on global GPP from 2001 to 2018. Our results demonstrated that CDHEs occurred more frequently and with greater severity than CHHEs during the study period. The immediate effects of CDHEs reduced GPP in 68% of vegetated areas, whereas CHHEs enhanced GPP in 58% of vegetated areas. Globally, CDHEs and CHHEs caused net GPP changes of -5.26 Pg C yr -1 and 1.67 Pg C yr -1 , respectively. In contrast, GPP in the polar zone, boreal shrubs, and boreal grasslands increased during CDHEs and decreased during CHHEs, with average net GPP changes of 0.17 Pg C yr -1 and -0.04 Pg C yr -1 , respectively. Additionally, lag effects were most prominent in the periods of 0 to 3 months and 10 to 12 months post-event. These findings highlight the contrasting impacts of compound dry-and humid-hot events on ecosystem carbon fluxes and provide a better understanding of global carbon cycles under climate extremes.
Keywords: Compound dry-hot events, Compound humid-hot events, gross primary productivity, Ecosystem types, Climate zones
Received: 21 Mar 2025; Accepted: 22 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Yu, Duan and WU. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Han Yu, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
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