Growing season extension and its impact on terrestrial carbon cycle in the Northern Hemisphere over the past 2 decades

A number of studies have suggested that the growing season duration has significantly lengthened during the past decades, but the connections between phenology variability and the terrestrial carbon (C) cycle are far from clear. In this study, we used the “ORganizing Carbon and Hydrology In Dynamic Ecosystems” (ORCHIDEE) process based ecosystem model together with observed climate data to investigate spatiotemporal changes in phenology and their impacts on carbon fluxes in the Northern Hemisphere (>25°N) during 1980–2002. We found that the growing season length (GSL) has increased by 0.30 days yr−1 (R2 = 0.27, P = 0.010), owing to the combination of an earlier onset in spring (0.16 days yr−1) and a later termination in autumn (0.14 days yr−1). Trends in the GSL are however highly variable across the regions. In Eurasia, there is a significant trend toward earlier vegetation green‐up with an overall advancement rate of 0.28 days yr−1 (R2 = 0.32, P = 0.005), while in North America there is a significantly delayed vegetation senescence by 0.28 days yr−1 (R2 = 0.26, P = 0.013) during the study period. Our results also suggested that the GSL strongly correlates with annual gross primary productivity (GPP) and net primary productivity (NPP), indicating that longer growing seasons may eventually enhance vegetation growth. A 1‐day extension in GSL leads to an increase in annual GPP of 5.8 gC m−2 yr−1 (or 0.6% per day), and an increase in NPP of 2.8 gC m−2 yr−1 per day. However, owing to enhanced soil carbon decomposition accompanying the GPP increase, a change in GSL correlates only poorly with a change in annual net ecosystem productivity (NEP).