Heat stress: an underestimated impact of climate change on vegetation

Heat stress: an underestimated impact of climate change on vegetation | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Biological Sciences - Article Heat stress: an underestimated impact of climate change on vegetation Nicolas Viovy, Philippe Ciais, Ana Bastos, Fabienne Maignan, Cedric Bacour, and 1 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4964815/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Heat stress occurs when plants experience temperature beyond their normal optimum and can disrupt cell functioning and growth. Exposure to extreme heat results in reduced plant productivity and can have lagged effects through accelerated leaf senescence Teskey et al (2014) Rao et al (2023). Few studies exist on evaluation of impact of heat stress at the global scale. It not fully understood, and is thereby only partially represented in land surface models. Detecting the impact of heat stress from space-borne observations is challenging, since it co-occurs with other stressors, such as low water availability. In this paper, we define a method that allows to detect the long term impact of heat stress at the global scale from remote sensing data by disentangling the heat stress effect on vegetation from other covariates, particularly drought. We show that, when maximum surface temperature exceeds a threshold of around 43°C, heat stress is detected on satellite estimates of Leaf Area Index (LAI). Locally, we observe a different critical temperature at which Leaf damage occurs suggesting an acclimation of plants to heat stress. Based on the observed impact of heat stress on leaf foliage, by implementing this relationship in the ORCHIDEE land surface model, we simulated a limited impact of leaf heat damages on net primary productivity (NPP) until the beginning of the 21st century followed by a rapid increase in the last two decades (2000-2020). Simulations for future climate suggest that, if the heat effect on NPP at the global scale is limited (below 2% for RCP 8.5), regionally the impact can be high with up to 25% of reduction of the annual NPP for instance in China and western US. This study emphasizes that we should, in the future, pay more attention to the direct impact of heat stress on leaves and not only to the effect of drought on the negative impact of climate change on vegetation. Earth and environmental sciences/Ecology/Biogeochemistry/Carbon cycle Earth and environmental sciences/Climate sciences/Climate change/Climate-change impacts Biological sciences/Ecology/Ecophysiology Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-4964815","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Biological Sciences - Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":353122849,"identity":"16783489-7026-4dea-9c31-cf713f04e4a9","order_by":0,"name":"Nicolas 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Exposure to extreme heat results in reduced plant productivity and can have lagged effects through accelerated leaf senescence Teskey et al (2014) Rao et al\r\n(2023). Few studies exist on evaluation of impact of heat stress at the global scale. It not fully understood, and is thereby only partially represented in land surface models. Detecting the impact of heat stress from space-borne observations is challenging, since it co-occurs with other\r\nstressors, such as low water availability. In this paper, we define a method that allows to detect the long term impact of heat stress at the global scale from remote sensing data by disentangling the heat stress effect on vegetation from other covariates, particularly drought. We show that,\r\nwhen maximum surface temperature exceeds a threshold of around 43°C, heat stress is detected on satellite estimates of Leaf Area Index (LAI). Locally, we observe a different critical temperature at which Leaf damage occurs suggesting an acclimation of plants to heat stress. Based on the observed impact of heat stress on leaf foliage, by implementing this relationship in the ORCHIDEE land surface model, we simulated a limited impact of leaf heat damages on net primary productivity (NPP) until the beginning of the 21st century followed by a rapid increase in\r\nthe last two decades (2000-2020). Simulations for future climate suggest that, if the heat effect on NPP at the global scale is limited (below 2% for RCP 8.5), regionally the impact can be high with up to 25% of reduction of the annual NPP for instance in China and western US.\r\nThis study emphasizes that we should, in the future, pay more attention to the direct impact of heat stress on leaves and not only to the effect of drought on the negative impact of climate change on vegetation.","manuscriptTitle":"Heat stress: an underestimated impact of climate change on vegetation","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2024-09-20 00:56:49","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4964815/v1","editorialEvents":[],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"nature-ecology-and-evolution","isNatureJournal":true,"hasQc":false,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"natecolevol","sideBox":"Learn more about [Nature Ecology \u0026 Evolution](http://www.nature.com/natecolevol/)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Nature Ecology \u0026 Evolution","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"ejp","reportingPortfolio":"Nature Research","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"2d0fe906-29e8-4aa6-a3d4-e1b714d1cf36","owner":[],"postedDate":"September 20th, 2024","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[{"id":37513953,"name":"Earth and environmental sciences/Ecology/Biogeochemistry/Carbon cycle"},{"id":37513954,"name":"Earth and environmental sciences/Climate sciences/Climate change/Climate-change impacts"},{"id":37513955,"name":"Biological sciences/Ecology/Ecophysiology"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2024-09-20T00:56:49+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2024-09-20 00:56:49","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-4964815","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-4964815","identity":"rs-4964815","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"qtupq5eGEP_6zYnWcrvyt","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}