Assessing the regional climate impact on terrestrial ecosystem over East Asia using coupled models with land use and land cover forcing during 1980–2010

The coupled model AVIM-RIEMS2.0 is employed to examine the effects of climate change on the terrestrial ecosystem over East Asia during three decades since the 1980s. The vegetation parameters present significantly different responses to climate change in subregions, since the effects of climate change trigger seasonal signals on land surface processes at the regional scale. In the 1980s, the increasing temperature and rainfall lead to a decrease in biomass and leaf area index (LAI) in winter, but a slight increase in net primary productivity (NPP) over China. However, summertime precipitation shows interval changes of cyclic increase-decrease pattern over eastern China, and the similar pattern also occurs for the variations in biomass and LAI. In the 1990s, the temperature and precipitation over the most regions in East Asia demonstrate the opposite changes compared to the 1980s, which results in converse variations in LAI and vegetation carbon flux. In the 2000s, biomass and LAI in the mid-lower reaches of Yangtze River basin and southeast coastal regions exhibit the same changes as precipitation in winter, and NPP shows a similar response to temperature. The biomass and LAI show consistent responses to regional climate change in summer, while different responses are seen for NPP. In general, climate change had a great impact on the vegetation in the 1990s, which produced the remarkable influences on LAI and biomass in winter and the significant impacts on NPP in summer. Over the regions affected significantly by East Asian monsoon, e.g. South China, the terrestrial ecosystem displays a roughly consistent response to regional climate change.