Warming and Disturbances Affect North American Arctic-Boreal Vegetation Resilience

Abstract Rapid warming and increasing disturbances in Arctic-boreal regions have caused extensive vegetation shifts and uncertain future carbon budgets. Better predictions of vegetation dynamics and functions require characterizing resilience–the capability to recover from climate perturbations and disturbances. Here, we quantify time-varying vegetation resilience using temporal autocorrelation of remotely sensed greenness during 2000–2019 across North American Arctic-boreal ecosystems. We find vegetation resilience significantly decreased in most boreal forests, including in forests showing greening trends, while likely increased in the majority of Arctic tundra. Warm and dry areas with high elevation and dense vegetation cover were among the hotspots of reduced resilience. Resilience further diminished both before and after most land cover changes and fires. The findings highlight warming and disturbance have been undermining vegetation resilience, especially in relatively warm boreal forests, potentially undermining the expected long-term increase of high latitude carbon uptake under future climate.