Increasing Impact of Precipitation on Alpine-Grassland Productivity over Last Two Decades on the Tibetan Plateau

Understanding the importance of temperature and precipitation on plant productivity is beneficial, to reveal potential impact climate change vegetation growth. Although some studies have quantified response at local, regional, global scales, changes in climatic constraints over time are not well understood. This study combines normalized difference index (NDVI) net primary production (NPP) modeled by CASA during plant-growing season, quantify interplay (growing-season precipitation, GST GSP) alpine-grassland Tibetan Plateau, as temporal dynamics these constraints. The results showed that (1) 42.2% 36.3% grassland NDVI NPP Plateau increased significantly from 2000 2019. GSP controlled growth dryland regions, while humid grasslands were GST. (2) strength (partial correlation coefficient RNDVI-GSP RNPP-GSP) substantially between Especially, RNPP-GSP 0.14 0.01 first 10year period (2000–2009) 0.83 0.78 second 10-year (2010–2019), respectively. As a result, controlling factor for variations shifted 2000–2009 2010–2019. (3) increase was mainly distributed regions plateau. highlights might under ongoing change, which helps understanding ecological responses predict how future.