Climate change is expected to impact the functioning of the entire Earth system. However, detecting changes in ecosystem dynamics and attributing such change to anthropogenic climate change has proved difficult. Here we analyse the vegetation dynamics of 100 sites representative of the diversity of terrestrial ecosystem types using remote-sensing data spanning the past 40 years and a dynamic model of plant growth, forced by climate reanalysis data. We detect a change in vegetation activity for all ecosystem types and find these changes can be attributed to trends in climate-system parameters. Ecosystems in dry and warm locations responded primarily to changes in soil moisture, whereas ecosystems in cooler locations responded primarily to changes in temperature. We find that the effects of CO₂ fertilization on vegetation are limited, potentially due to masking by other environmental drivers. Observed trend switching is widespread and dominated by shifts from greening to browning, suggesting many of the ecosystems studied are accumulating less carbon. Our study reveals a clear fingerprint of climate change in the change exhibited by terrestrial ecosystems over recent decades.

预计气候变化将影响整个地球系统的运作。然而，检测生态系统动态的变化并将这种变化归因于人为气候变化已被证明是困难的。在这里，我们使用跨越过去 40 年的遥感数据和受气候再分析数据驱动的植物生长动态模型，分析了代表陆地生态系统类型多样性的 100 个地点的植被动态。我们检测到所有生态系统类型的植被活动发生变化，并发现这些变化可归因于气候系统参数的趋势。干燥和温暖地区的生态系统主要对土壤水分的变化作出反应，而较冷地区的生态系统主要对温度变化作出反应。我们发现 CO _2的影响对植被的施肥是有限的，这可能是由于其他环境驱动因素的掩盖。观察到的趋势转换很普遍，主要是从绿化到褐变的转变，这表明所研究的许多生态系统正在积累较少的碳。我们的研究揭示了近几十年来陆地生态系统所表现出的变化中气候变化的清晰指纹。