Vegetation green-up date is more sensitive to permafrost degradation than climate change in spring across the northern permafrost region

Abstract

Global climate change substantially influences vegetation spring phenology, that is, green-up date (GUD), in the northern permafrost region. Changes in GUD regulate ecosystem carbon uptake, further feeding back to local and regional climate systems. Extant studies mainly focused on the direct effects of climate factors, such as temperature, precipitation, and insolation; however, the responses of GUD to permafrost degradation caused by warming (i.e., indirect effects) remain elusive yet. In this study, we examined the impacts of permafrost degradation on GUD by analyzing the long-term trend of satellite-based GUD in relation to permafrost degradation measured by the start of thaw (SOT) and active layer thickness (ALT). We found significant trends of advancing GUD, SOT, and thickening ALT (p < 0.05), with a spatially averaged slope of -2.1 days decade^-1 , -4.1 days decade^-1 , and +1.1 cm decade^-1 , respectively. Using partial correlation analyses, we found more than half of the regions with significantly negative correlations between spring temperature and GUD became nonsignificant after considering permafrost degradation. GUD exhibits dominant-positive (37.6% vs. 0.6%) and dominant-negative (1.8% vs. 35.1%) responses to SOT and ALT, respectively. Earlier SOT and thicker ALT would enhance soil water availability, thus alleviating water stress for vegetation green-up. Based on sensitivity analyses, permafrost degradation was the dominant factor controlling GUD variations in 41.7% of the regions, whereas only 19.6% of the regions were dominated by other climatic factors (i.e., temperature, precipitation, and insolation). Our results indicate that GUDs were more sensitive to permafrost degradation than direct climate change in spring among different vegetation types, especially in high latitudes. This study reveals the significant impacts of permafrost degradation on vegetation GUD and highlights the importance of permafrost status in better understanding spring phenological responses to future climate change.

Keywords: active layer thickness (ALT); climatic sensitivity; green-up date (GUD); permafrost degradation; start of thaw (SOT).