Anthropogenically-driven escalating impact of soil-based compound dry-hot extremes on vegetation productivity

Compound dry-hot extremes exert stronger environmental impacts than individual dry or hot extremes. While evidence for increasing meteorological compound dry-hot extremes (defined using surface air temperature and vapor pressure deficit or precipitation) is growing, the impacts and evolving risks of soil-based compound dry-hot extremes remain poorly understood. Using homogenized soil temperature observations and observationally constrained soil moisture dataset for China, we show that the adverse effects of soil-based compound dry-hot extremes on vegetation productivity are more severe than their meteorological counterparts. From 1980 to 2017, the frequency and coverage area of soil-based compound dry-hot extremes in China increased by 3.0 days and 141.9 <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mo>×</mml:mo></mml:math> 10⁴km², respectively, with the most pronounced increases occurring in northern China. These increases are primarily attributed to anthropogenic soil warming. Under a fossil-fueled development scenario, the mean frequency of such extremes is projected to increase by 13.3 days by the end of the twenty-first century relative to the 1981-2010 baseline, potentially reducing China's terrestrial vegetation gross primary production by approximately 0.025 Pg C a^-1. Our findings highlight an anthropogenic escalation of soil-based compound dry-hot extremes and their growing threats to terrestrial carbon sinks and food security.