Urban warming advances spring phenology but reduces the response of phenology to temperature in the conterminous United States
Lin Meng, Jiafu Mao, Yuyu Zhou, Andrew D. Richardson, Xuhui Lee, Peter Thornton, Daniel Ricciuto, Xuecao Li, Yongjiu Dai, Xiaoying Shi, Gensuo Jia
Abstract
Significance Cities and their associated urban heat islands are ideal natural laboratories for evaluating the response of plant phenology to warming conditions. In this study, we demonstrate that the satellite-derived start of season for plants occurred earlier but showed less covariation with temperature in most of the large 85 cities across the conterminous United States for the period 2001–2014. The results show a reduction in the response of urban phenology to temperature and imply that, in nonurban environments, the onset of spring phenology will likely advance but will slow down as the general trend toward warming continues.