Climate-induced changes in the vegetation pattern of China in the 21st century

Quantifying climate-induced changes in vegetation patterns is essential to understanding land-climate interactions and ecosystem changes. In the present study, we estimated various distributional changes of vegetation under different climate-change scenarios in the 21st century. Both hypothetical scenarios and Hedley RCM scenarios show that the transitional vegetation types, such as shrubland and grassland, have higher sensitivity to climatic change compared to vegetation under extreme climatic conditions, such as the evergreen broadleaf forest or desert, barren lands. Mainly, the sensitive areas in China lie in the Tibetan Plateau, Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, northeastern plain of China and eco-zones between different vegetations. As the temperature increases, mixed forests and deciduous broadleaf forests will shift towards northern China. Grassland, shrubland and wooded grassland will extend to southeastern China. The RCM-project climate changes generally have caused positive vegetation changes; vegetation cover will probably improve 19% relative to baseline, and the forest will expand to 8% relative to baseline, while the desert and bare ground will reduce by about 13%.