Humid, Warm and Treed Ecosystems Show Longer Time‐Lag of Vegetation Response to Climate

Abstract Climate‐vegetation interaction assessments often focus on vegetation response to concurrent climatic perturbations, seldom on the time‐lag effect of climate. Here we employ global satellite observations, climate data records and CO 2 flux measurements to calculate the time‐lag of vegetation response to climate. We analyze the time‐lags of various climate variables under distinct environmental conditions to gain insight into how the long‐term climatic regimes and tree cover influence the time‐lag effects. Our findings reveal that terrestrial ecosystems characterized by arid and cold climates show more concurrent climate‐vegetation interactions than other ecosystems. Whereas areas with higher tree cover and humid ecosystems with both high mean annual temperature and precipitation show substantial time‐lag response of vegetation to climate by up to 6 months. Since the global climate‐vegetation interaction is dominated by time‐lag effects, incorporating these effects is paramount to improve our understanding of vegetation dynamics under a changing climate.