Earth's record-high greenness and its attributions in 2020

• Published in: Remote sensing of environment 2025-01, Vol.316, p.114494, Article 114494
• Main Authors: Zhang, Yulong, Mao, Jiafu, Sun, Ge, Guo, Qinfeng, Atkins, Jeffrey, Li, Wenhong, Jin, Mingzhou, Song, Conghe, Xiao, Jingfeng, Hwang, Taehee, Qiu, Tong, Meng, Lin, Ricciuto, Daniel M., Shi, Xiaoying, Li, Xing, Thornton, Peter, Hoffman, Forrest
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: biosphere; carbon; carbon dioxide; climate; COVID-19 infection; COVID-MIP; Earth system science; ecosystem management; ecosystems; Ensemble; Environmental changes; Long-term and short-term; Machine learning; Multi-source remote sensing; Pandemic; rain; Record-high greening; reforestation; satellites; social welfare; Terrestrial vegetation; TRENDY; vegetation
• ISSN: 0034-4257
• DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2024.114494

Terrestrial vegetation is a crucial component of Earth's biosphere, regulating global carbon and water cycles and contributing to human welfare. Despite an overall greening trend, terrestrial vegetation exhibits a significant inter-annual variability. The mechanisms driving this variability, particularly those related to climatic and anthropogenic factors, remain poorly understood, which hampers our ability to project the long-term sustainability of ecosystem services. Here, by leveraging diverse remote sensing measurements, we pinpointed 2020 as a historic landmark, registering as the greenest year in modern satellite records from 2001 to 2020. Using ensemble machine learning and Earth system models, we found this exceptional greening primarily stemmed from consistent growth in boreal and temperate vegetation, attributed to rising CO2 levels, climate warming, and reforestation efforts, alongside a transient tropical green-up linked to the enhanced rainfall. Contrary to expectations, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns had a limited impact on this global greening anomaly. Our findings highlight the resilience and dynamic nature of global vegetation in response to diverse climatic and anthropogenic influences, offering valuable insights for optimizing ecosystem management and informing climate mitigation strategies. •Earth recorded its highest level of vegetation greenness in 2020 since early 2000s.•This greening largely linked to continuous growth in boreal and temperate vegetation.•Complemented by a transient tropical vegetation boost due to increased rainfall.•Marginal greening effects from COVID-19 lockdowns at the global scale.•Potential regulation of global carbon dynamics in the pandemic year of 2020.