Vegetation-induced asymmetric diurnal land surface temperatures changes across global climate zones

Lingxue Yu; Ye Liu; Xuan Li; Fengqin Yan; Vincent Lyne; Tingxiang Liu

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165255

Vegetation-induced asymmetric diurnal land surface temperatures changes across global climate zones

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Oct 20:896:165255. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165255. Epub 2023 Jul 1.

Authors

Lingxue Yu¹, Ye Liu², Xuan Li¹, Fengqin Yan³, Vincent Lyne⁴, Tingxiang Liu⁵

Affiliations

¹ Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Research Center, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130102, China.
² Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, United States.
³ State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China. Electronic address: yanfq@lreis.ac.cn.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China; IMAS-Hobart, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS 7004, Australia.
⁵ College of Geography Science, Changchun Normal University, Changchun 130031, China.

PMID: 37400032
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.165255

Abstract

Unprecedented global vegetation greening during past decades is well known to affect annual and seasonal land surface temperatures (LST). However, the impact of observed vegetation cover change on diurnal LST across global climatic zones is not well understood. Using global climatic time-series datasets, we investigated the long-term growing season daytime and nighttime LST changes globally and explored associated dominant contributors including vegetation and climate factors including air temperature, precipitation, and solar radiation. Results revealed asymmetric growing season mean daytime and nighttime LST warming (0.16 °C/10a and 0.30 °C/10a, respectively) globally from 2003 to 2020, as a result, the diurnal LST range (DLSTR) declined at 0.14 °C/10a. The sensitivity analysis indicated the LST response to changes in LAI, precipitation, and SSRD mainly concentrated during daytime instead of nighttime, however, which showed comparable sensitivities for air temperature. Combining the sensitivities results and the observed LAI and climate trends, we found rising air temperature contributes to 0.24 ± 0.11 °C/10a global daytime LST warming and 0.16 ± 0.07 °C/10a nighttime LST warming, turns to be the dominant contributor to the LST changes. Increased LAI cooled global daytime LST (-0.068 ± 0.096 °C/10a) while warmed nighttime LST (0.064 ± 0.046 °C/10a); hence LAI dominates declines in DLSTR trends (-0.12 ± 0.08 °C/10a), despite some day-night process variations across climate zones. In Boreal regions, reduced DLSTR was due to nighttime warming from LAI increases. In other climatic zones, daytime cooling, and DLSTR decline, was induced by increased LAI. Biophysically, the pathway from air temperature heats the surface through sensible heat and increased downward longwave radiation during day and night, while the pathway from LAI cools the surface by enhancing energy redistribution into latent heat rather than sensible heat during the daytime. These empirical findings of diverse asymmetric responses could help calibrate and improve biophysical models of diurnal surface temperature feedback in response to vegetation cover changes in different climate zones.

Keywords: Climate change; Diurnal temperature asymmetry, global vegetation greening; Diurnal temperature cycle; Global warming.