Spatial variations in the difference in elevational shifts between greenness and temperature isolines across the...

Climate warming has induced widespread isotherm shifts toward higher elevations on the Tibetan Plateau, but elevational shifts of vegetation greenness (indicated by Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, NDVI) do not necessarily keep pace with the isotherm shifts. Thus, there should be spatial variations in the difference between the velocities of vertical movement of greenness isolines (V_NDVI) and isotherms (V_T) across the Tibetan Plateau grasslands. Using satellite-observed NDVI and gridded climate data during 2000-2017, we found uphill shifts of the isotherms in 81.8 % of the surveyed areas, mainly in the eastern, central, southwestern, and northeastern parts, whereas upward shifts of the greenness isolines were observed only in 49.7 % of these areas, mainly in the southeastern, west-central, and southwestern edge of Tibetan Plateau grasslands. In the areas where both the greenness isolines and isotherms shifted uphill, V_DNVI was faster than V_T in the west-central and northeastern parts, and V_NDVI was smaller than V_T in the western, south-central, central, and southeastern regions; the difference between V_NDVI and V_T was positively related with elevational gradient of NDVI (NDVI_EG) in the areas where NDVI_EG was negative and the temporal trend of NDVI was positive, and was negatively related with NDVI_EG and temporal trends of NDVI and temperature in the areas where NDVI_EG was positive and temporal trend of NDVI was negative. Our results revealed spatial heterogeneity in the difference in the elevational shifts between the isotherm and vegetation greenness isoline across the Tibetan Plateau grasslands, which is related with both diverse adaptation to local environment (NDVI_EG) and complex responses of vegetation greenness to warming in terms of both direction and magnitude. These findings have important implications for the prediction of vegetation production and carbon cycle and the adaptive management of alpine grasslands under climate change.