Contrasting temperature effects on the velocity of early- versus late-stage vegetation green-up in the Northern Hemisphere.

Global vegetation greening has been widely confirmed in previous studies, yet the changes in the velocity of green-up in each month of green-up period (GUP) remains unclear. Here, we defined the velocity of vegetation green-up as V NDVI (the monthly increase of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index [NDVI] during GUP) and further explored its response to climate change in middle-high-latitude Northern Hemisphere. We found that in early GUP, V NDVI generally showed positive trends from 1982 to 2015, whereas in late GUP, it showed negative trends in most areas. Such contrasting trends were mainly due to a positive temperature effect on V NDVI in early GUP, but this effect turned negative in late GUP. The increase of soil moisture also in part explained the accelerated vegetation green-up, especially in the arid and semi-arid ecosystems of inland areas. Our analyses also indicate that the first month of the GUP was the key stage impacting vegetation greenness in summer. Future warming may continuously speed up the early growth of vegetation, altering the seasonal trajectory of vegetation and its feedbacks to the Earth system.