Global greening continued into 2023, reaching near-record values that were dominated by regional enhancement in the mid-western USA, Europe, northern Australia and parts of equatorial Africa. In contrast, climatic events contributed to browning signals in Russia, Canada, Mexico and tropical drylands.
Key points
-
2023 global vegetation greenness was the third highest observed in satellite records, following 2020 and 2021.
-
While the greening trend continued into 2023, shorter-term variability modulates the long-term greening pace.
-
Multiple extreme climatic events, in tandem with an El Niño event, markedly diminished vegetation greenness in many regions during 2023.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$99.00 per year
only $8.25 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Myneni, R. B., Keeling, C. D., Tucker, C. J., Asrar, G. & Nemani, R. R. Increased plant growth in the northern high latitudes from 1981 to 1991. Nature 386, 698–702 (1997).
Piao, S. et al. Characteristics, drivers and feedbacks of global greening. Nat. Rev. Earth Environ. 1, 14–27 (2020).
Chen, C. et al. China and India lead in greening of the world through land-use management. Nat. Sustain. 2, 122–129 (2019).
Zhu, Z. et al. Greening of the Earth and its drivers. Nat. Clim. Change 6, 791–795 (2016).
Anderson, L. O. et al. Vulnerability of Amazonian forests to repeated droughts. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. 373, 20170411 (2018).
Didan, K. MOD13C2 MODIS/Terra Vegetation Indices Monthly L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG V006 (NASA EOSDIS Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center, accessed 8 January 2024); https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD13C2.006
Li, M. et al. Spatiotemporally consistent global dataset of the GIMMS Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (PKU GIMMS NDVI) from 1982 to 2022. Earth Syst. Sci. Data. 15, 4181–4203 (2023).
Jiang, J. & Zhou, T. Agricultural drought over water-scarce Central Asia aggravated by internal climate variability. Nat. Geosci. 16, 154–161 (2023).
Bennett, A. C. et al. Sensitivity of South American tropical forests to an extreme climate anomaly. Nat. Clim. Change 13, 967–974 (2023).
Peñuelas, J. et al. Shifting from a fertilization-dominated to a warming-dominated period. Nat Ecol. Evol. 1, 1438–1445 (2017).
Acknowledgements
This article was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41988101).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Li, X., Wang, K., Huntingford, C. et al. Vegetation greenness in 2023. Nat Rev Earth Environ 5, 241–243 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-024-00543-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-024-00543-z
