Impacts of Climate Change on the Global Forest Sector

The path and magnitude of future anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide will likely influence changes in climate that may impact the global forest sector. These responses in the global forest sector may have implications for international efforts to stabilize the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. This study takes a step toward including the role of global forest sector in integrated assessments of the global carbon cycle by linking global models of climate dynamics, ecosystem processes and forest economics to assess the potential responses of the global forest sector to different levels of greenhouse gas emissions. We utilize three climate scenarios and two economic scenarios to represent a range of greenhouse gas emissions and economic behavior. At the end of the analysis period (2040), the potential responses in regional forest growing stock simulated by the global ecosystem model range from decreases and increases for the low emissions climate scenario to increases in all regions for the high emissions climate scenario. The changes in vegetation are used to adjust timber supply in the softwood and hardwood sectors of the economic model. In general, the global changes in welfare are positive, but small across all scenarios. At the regional level, the changes in welfare can be large and either negative or positive. Markets and trade in forest products play important roles in whether a region realizes any gains associated with climate change. In general, regions with the lowest wood fiber production cost are able to expand harvests. Trade in forest products leads to lower prices elsewhere. The low-cost regions expand market shares and force higher-cost regions to decrease their harvests. Trade produces different economic gains and losses across the globe even though, globally, economic welfare increases. The results of this study indicate that assumptions within alternative climate scenarios and about trade in forest products are important factors that strongly influence the effects of climate change on the global forest sector.     

How the future of the global forest sink depends on timber demand,forest management,and carbon policies

Deforestation has contributed significantly to net greenhouse gas emissions, but slowing deforestation, regrowing forests and other ecosystem processes have made forests a net sink. Deforestation will still influence future carbon fluxes, but the role of forest growth through aging, management, and other silvicultural inputs on future carbon fluxes are critically important but not always recognized by bookkeeping and integrated assessment models. When projecting the future, it is vital to capture how management processes affect carbon storage in ecosystems and wood products. This study uses multiple global forest sector models to project forest carbon impacts across 81 shared socioeconomic (SSP) and climate mitigation pathway scenarios. We illustrate the importance of modeling management decisions in existing forests in response to changing demands for land resources, wood products and carbon. Although the models vary in key attributes, there is general agreement across a majority of scenarios that the global forest sector could remain a carbon sink in the future, sequestering 1.2–5.8 GtCO2e/yr over the next century. Carbon fluxes in the baseline scenarios that exclude climate mitigation policy ranged from −0.8 to 4.9 GtCO2e/yr, highlighting the strong influence of SSPs on forest sector model estimates. Improved forest management can jointly increase carbon stocks and harvests without expanding forest area, suggesting that carbon fluxes from managed forests systems deserve more careful consideration by the climate policy community.     

Managing carbon-intensive materials in a decarbonizing world without a global price on carbon

Emissions from the production of iron and steel could constitute a significant share of a 2°C global emissions budget (around 19% under the IEA 2DS scenario). They need to be reduced, and this could be difficult under nationally based climate policy approaches. We compare a new set of nationally based modelling (the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project) with best practice and technical limit benchmarks for iron and steel and cement emissions. We find that 2050 emissions from iron and steel and cement production represent an average 0.28?tCO₂ per capita in nationally based modelling results, very close to the technical limit benchmark of 0.21?tCO₂ per capita, and over 2.5 times lower than the best practice benchmark of 0.72?tCO₂ per capita. This suggests that national projections may be overly optimistic about achievable emissions reductions in the absence of global carbon pricing and an international research and development effort to develop low emissions technologies for emissions-intensive products. We also find that equal per capita emissions targets, often the basis of proposals for how global emissions budgets should be allocated, would be inadequate without global emissions trading. These results show that a nationally based global climate policy framework, as has been confirmed in the Paris Agreement, could lead to risks of overshooting global emissions targets for some countries and carbon leakage. Tailored approaches such as border taxes, sectoral emissions trading or carbon taxes, and consumption-based carbon pricing can help, but each faces difficulties. Ultimately, global efforts are needed to improve technology and material efficiency in emissions-intensive commodities manufacturing and use. Those efforts could be supported by technology standards and a globally coordinated R&D effort, and strengthened by the adoption of global emissions budgets for emissions-intensive traded goods.

Policy relevance

This article presents new empirical findings on global iron and steel and cement production in a low-carbon world economy, demonstrates the risks associated with a nationally based global climate policy framework as has been confirmed in the Paris Agreement, and analyses policy options to deal with those risks.     

A case for introducing an explicit carbon price into China's export tax

In recent years, export value-added tax (VAT) refund rebate and export tax (EVRRET) measures have been adopted for energy-intensive products in China. They are proclaimed to be climate policy, yet there is no explicit and unique carbon cost set on export, and the implicit export carbon tax rates vary dramatically across sectors and over different periods. A method is provided to introduce an explicit and unique carbon cost into the current EVRRET. By setting a comparable carbon cost (US$20/tCO₂ and US$30/tCO₂) for eight major energy-intensive sectors to which the EVRRET is widely applied, it derives the corresponding ad valorem average rate for each sector. The introduction of a carbon cost into export VAT refund rebate policy would not increase the current export VAT refund rebate rate (except for the chemical sector), but would simply define a ceiling. However, the same introduction into the export tax policy would lead to an overall increase in sectoral export tax rates. In terms of competitiveness and World Trade Organisation concerns, the better option for introducing a carbon cost into Chinese exports would be through reforming export VAT refund rebate policy.     

Country-Specific Market Impacts of Climate Change

We develop a new climate-impact model, theGlobal Impact Model (GIM), which combines futurescenarios, detailed spatial simulations by generalcirculation models (GCMs), sectoral features,climate-response functions, and adaptation to generatecountry-specific impacts by market sector. Estimatesare made for three future scenarios, two GCMs, andtwo climate-response functions – a reduced-form modeland a cross-sectional model. Combining empiricallybased response functions, sectoral data by country,and careful climate forecasts gives analysts a morepowerful tool for estimating market impacts. GIMpredicts that country specific results vary, implyingthat research in this area is likely to bepolicy-relevant.     

International Trade in Wood Products: Its Role in the Land Use Change andForestry Carbon Cycle

Accounting harvested wood products and their trade as an integral part of thecarbon cycle of a managed forest is achallenging task. Nevertheless, an appropriate way is especially needed nowthat harvested wood products may be includedin Article 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol. The adoption of a method for accountingfor these flows in the IPCC guidelines mayhave implications for the trade of wood products and thus on global forestmanagement.Four methods of accounting for wood products in an international perspective areanalyzed in the present study. The aimis to obtain insight in the technical and policy implications of the proposedmethods. These methods include the presentdefault IPCC method and three alternatives: flow consumption, flow production,and stock change. All fourmethodologies are applied to the 1990 data of Gabon, Sweden, and TheNetherlands.The impact of accounting for wood products using alternative methods has –in some cases – a large impact on the carbonbalance of the Land Use Change and Forestry (LUCF) sector. In the case of TheNetherlands, it was found that theLUCF carbon balance could be `converted' from a sink into a source dependingon the method chosen. However,the LUCF sector is very small compared to the total national carbon balancein The Netherlands. In Sweden, a countrywhere the forest sector plays an important role, the alternative wood productmethods influence the total nationalcarbon balance by 34%. In Gabon, a country with conversion forestry,the impact of alternative wood productmethods hardly influences the LUCF carbon balance because the emissions fromdeforestation are very large.The accounting method may have a large impact on the way countries regardtheir trade in wood products. It may bepossible for countries to buy a sink through the wood products trade, byimporting products faster than they decomposedomestically. In the case of Gabon with its conversion forestry (the changefrom forest into other types of land use, like agriculture,it was foundthat under the flow consumption method,this country can partly export the carbon sources resulting fromnonsustainable forest management. Nor is this lattermethod consistent with the energy chapter of the IPCC guidelines. The stockchange method seems to be a suitablemethod, combining precise accounting and simplicity. This method is also anincentive for the use of wood in long-lifeproducts and bioenergy, and for sustainable forest management.     

Carbon storage in Chinese terrestrial ecosystems: approaching a more accurate estimate

China is an important region for the global study of carbon because of its vast territory with various climate regimes, diverse ecosystems, and long-term human disturbances and land-use history. Carbon storage in ecosystems in China has been estimated using inventory and modeling methods in the past two decades. However, different methods may result in varied magnitudes and forms of carbon storage. In this study, the current status of carbon storage in terrestrial ecosystems in China, including the impacts of land use, is summarized in the national, regional, and biome scales. Significant differences in data have existed among studies. Such differences are mainly attributed to variations in estimation methods, data availability, and periods. According to available national-scale information on Chinese terrestrial ecosystems, vegetation carbon in China is 6.1 Pg C to 76.2 Pg C (mean 36.98 Pg C) and soil carbon is 43.6 Pg C to 185.7 Pg C (mean 100.75 Pg C). The forest sector has vegetation carbon of 3.26 Pg C to 9.11 Pg C (mean 5.49 Pg C), whereas the grassland sector has 0.13 Pg C to 3.06 Pg C (mean 1.41 Pg C). Soil carbon in the forest and grassland sectors exhibits more significant regional variations. Further studies need a comprehensive methodology, which combines national inventory, field measurement, eddy covariance technique, remote sensing, and model simulation in a single framework, as well as all available data at different temporal and spatial scales, to fully account for the carbon budget in China.     

Integrating climatic change and forests: Economic and ecologic assessments

Effective policies for dealing with anticipated climatic changes must reflect the two-way interactions between climate, forests and society. Considerable analysis has focused on one aspect of forests - timber production - at a local and regional scale, but no fully integrated global studies have been conducted. The appropriate ecological and economic models appear to be available to do so. Nontimber aspects of forests dominate the social values provided by many forests, especially remote or unmanaged lands where the impacts of climatic change are apt to be most significant. Policy questions related to these issues and lands are much less well understood. Policy options related to afforestation are well studied, but other ways the forest sector can help ameliorate climatic change merit more extensive analysis. Promising possibilities include carbon taxes to influence the management of extant forests, and materials policies to lengthen the life of wood products or to encourage the substitution of CO₂-fixing wood products for ones manufactured from less benign materials.     

Global climate policy and deep decarbonization of energy-intensive industries

If we are to limit global warming to 2 °C, all sectors in all countries must reduce their emissions of GHGs to zero not later than 2060–2080. Zero-emission options have been less explored and are less developed in the energy-intensive basic materials industries than in other sectors. Current climate policies have not yet motivated major efforts to decarbonize this sector, and it has been largely protected from climate policy due to the perceived risks of carbon leakage and a focus on short-term reduction targets to 2020. We argue that the future global climate policy regime must develop along three interlinked and strategic lines to facilitate a deep decarbonization of energy-intensive industries. First, the principle of common but differentiated responsibility must be reinterpreted to allow for a dialogue on fairness and the right to development in relation to industry. Second, a greater focus on the development, deployment and transfer of technology in this sector is called for. Third, the potential conflicts between current free trade regimes and motivated industrial policies for deep decarbonization must be resolved. One way forward is to revisit the idea of sectoral approaches with a broader scope, including not only emission reductions, but recognizing the full complexity of low-carbon transitions in energy-intensive industries. A new approach could engage industrial stakeholders, support technology research, development and demonstration and facilitate deployment through reducing the risk for investors. The Paris Agreement allows the idea of sectoral approaches to be revisited in the interests of reaching our common climate goals.

Policy relevance

Deep decarbonization of energy-intensive industries will be necessary to meet the 2 °C target. This requires major innovation efforts over a long period. Energy-intensive industries face unique challenges from both innovation and technical perspectives due to the large scale of facilities, the character of their global markets and the potentially high mitigation costs. This article addresses these challenges and discusses ways in which the global climate policy framework should be developed after the Paris Agreement to better support transformative change in the energy-intensive industries.     

A global comparison of carbon-water-food nexus based on dietary consumption

Exploring the environmental impact of dietary consumption has become increasingly important to understand the carbon-water-food nexus, vital to achieving UN sustainable development goals. However, the research on diet-based nexus assessment is still lacking. Here, we developed an Environmentally Extended Multi-Regional Input-Output (EE-MRIO) model with compiling a global MRIO table based on the latest Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) 10 database, where we specifically constructed a water withdrawal account and matched it to each economy at the sectoral level. The regional heterogeneity and synergy of carbon-water nexus affected by dietary patterns in nine countries was explored. The results show that: (1) Dietary consumption is the main use of water withdrawal for each country; Japan, the US, South Korea, and India have a high per capita dietary water footprint. Mainly due to consumption of processed rice, Japan has the highest per capita value of 488 M³/year, accounting for 63.4% of the total water footprint. (2) The total dietary carbon footprints in China, India, and the US are high, which is mainly caused by the high consumption of animal products (including dairy) either due to the large population (China, India) or animal-based diet (the US). Americans have the highest per capita dietary carbon footprint, reaching 755.4 kg/year, 2.76 times that of the global average. (3) Generally, imported/foreign footprints account for a greater share in dietary water and carbon footprints of developed countries with an animal-based diet. (4) In the nexus analysis, the US, Japan, and South Korea are key-nexus countries, vegetables, fruit and nuts, tobacco and beverages, and other food products are selected as key-nexus sectors with relatively high dietary water and carbon footprint. Furthermore, dietary consumption choices lead to different environmental impacts. It is particularly important to find a sustainable dietary route adapted to each country considering that heterogeneity and synergism exist in key-nexus sectors to achieve the relevant Sustainable Development Goals.     

An Assessment of Integrated Climate Change Impacts on the Agricultural Economy of Egypt

This study used a quadratic programming sector model to assess the integrated impacts of climate change on the agricultural economy of Egypt. Results from a dynamic global food trade model were used to update the Egyptian sector model and included socio-economic trends and world market prices of agricultural goods. In addition, the impacts of climate change from three bio-physical sectors – water resources, crop yields, and land resources – were used as inputs to the economic model. The climate change scenarios generally had minor impacts on aggregated economic welfare (sum of Consumer and Producer Surplus or CPS), with the largest reduction of approximately 6 percent. In some climate change scenarios, CPS slightly improved or remained unchanged. These scenarios generally benefited consumers more than producers, as world market conditions reduced the revenue generating capacity of Egyptian agricultural exporters but decreased the costs of imports. Despite increased water availability and only moderate yield declines, several climate change scenarios showed producers being negatively affected by climate change. The analysis supported the hypothesis that smaller food importing countries are at a greater risk to climate change, and impacts could have as much to do with changes in world markets as with changes in local and regional biophysical systems and shifts in the national agricultural economy.     

The Role of Eucalyptus Globulus Forest and Products in Carbon Sequestration

This study is a contribution to the ongoing debate about the selection of the approach for carbon accounting in wood products to be used, in the future, in the national greenhouse gas inventories under the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). Two accounting approaches are used in this analysis: the stock-change approach and the atmospheric-flow approach. They are applied to the Portuguese Eucalyptus globulus forest sector. To achieve this objective, the fluxes of wood removed from the forest are tracked through its life cycle, which includes products manufacture (mainly pulp and paper), use and final disposal (landfilling, incineration and composting). This study develops a framework to the estimation of carbon sequestration in the forest of E. globulus, a fast growing species, more specifically, in the calculation of the conversion factors such as bark and foliage percentages and densities, used to convert wood volumes into total biomass. A mass balance approach based on real data from mills is also proposed, in order to assess carbon emissions from wood processing. The results show that E. globulus forest sector was a carbon sink, but the magnitude of the carbon sequestration differs substantially depending on the accounting approach used. The contribution of the forest ecosystem was smaller than the aggregated contribution of wood products in use and in landfills (including industrial waste), which reinforces the role that wood products play in national carbon budgets.     

Sensitivity of the Terrestrial Ecosystem to Precipitation and Temperature Variability over China

In this study, the sensitivities of net primary production （NPP）, soil carbon, and vegetation carbon to precipitation and temperature variability over China are discussed using the state-of-the-art Lund-Potsdam-Jena dynamic global vegetation model （LPJ DGVM）. The im- pacts of the sensitivities to precipitation variability and temperature variability on NPP, soil carbon, and vegeta- tion carbon are discussed. It is shown that increasing pre- cipitation variability, representing the frequency of ex- treme precipitation events, leads to losses in NPP, soil carbon, and vegetation carbon over most of China, espe- cially in North and Northeast China where the dominant plant functional types （i.e., those with the largest simu- lated areal cover） are grass and boreal needle-leaved for- est. The responses of NPP, soil carbon, and vegetation carbon to decreasing precipitation variability are opposite to the responses to increasing precipitation variability. The variations in NPP, soil carbon, and vegetation carbon in response to increasing and decreasing precipitation variability show a nonlinear asymmetry. Increasing pre- cipitation variability results in notable interannual variation of NPP. The sensitivities of NPP, soil carbon, and vegetation carbon to temperature variability, whether negative or positive, meaning frequent hot and cold days, are slight. The present study suggests, based on the LPJ model, that precipitation variability has a more severe impact than temperature variability on NPP, soil carbon, and vegetation carbon.     

The impacts avoided with a 1.5 °C climate target: a global and regional assessment

The 2015 Paris Agreement commits countries to pursue efforts to limit the increase in global mean temperature to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. We assess the consequences of achieving this target in 2100 for the impacts that are avoided, using several indicators of impact (exposure to drought, river flooding, heat waves and demands for heating and cooling energy). The proportion of impacts that are avoided is not simply equal to the proportional reduction in temperature. At the global scale, the median proportion of projected impacts avoided by the 1.5 °C target relative to a rise of 4 °C ranges between 62 and 95% across sectors: the greatest reduction is for heat wave impacts. The 1.5 °C target results in impacts that would be between 27 and 62% lower than with the 2 °C target. For each indicator, there are differences in the proportions of impacts avoided between regions depending on exposure and the regional changes in climate (particularly precipitation). Uncertainty in the proportion of impacts that are avoided for a specific sector depends on the range in the shape of the relationship between global temperature change and impact, and this varies between sectors.     

Long-term climate policy: international legal aspects of sector-based approaches

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss the international legal implications of a sector-based approach to long-term climate policy. Sector-based approaches have emerged as a possible way of engaging all the major emitters of greenhouse gases into the system. The article divides sectoral approaches into two main categories based on their legal relevance. Substantive sectoral models focus on ways of defining emission levels for global industry sectors. From the point of view of international law, substantive sectoral models could be integrated into the existing climate change regime if the Parties so agree. Procedural sectoral models focus on actors. Some procedural sectoral models envisage treaty regimes involving non-State actors, such as organizations representing global industry sectors undertaking to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The main focus of the article is on these models.     

The Potential Response of Terrestrial Carbon Storage to Changes in Climate and Atmospheric CO2

We use a georeferenced model of ecosystem carbon dynamics to explore the sensitivity of global terrestrial carbon storage to changes in atmospheric CO₂ and climate. We model changes in ecosystem carbon density, but we do not model shifts in vegetation type. A model of annual NPP is coupled with a model of carbon allocation in vegetation and a model of decomposition and soil carbon dynamics. NPP is a function of climate and atmospheric CO₂ concentration. The CO₂ response is derived from a biochemical model of photosynthesis. With no change in climate, a doubling of atmospheric CO₂ from 280 ppm to 560 ppm enhances equilibrium global NPP by 16.9%; equilibrium global terrestrial ecosystem carbon (TEC) increases by 14.9%. Simulations with no change in atmospheric CO₂ concentration but changes in climate from five atmospheric general circulation models yield increases in global NPP of 10.0–14.8%. The changes in NPP are very nearly balanced by changes in decomposition, and the resulting changes in TEC range from an increase of 1.1% to a decrease of 1.1%. These results are similar to those from analyses using bioclimatic biome models that simulate shifts in ecosystem distribution but do not model changes in carbon density within vegetation types. With changes in both climate and a doubling of atmospheric CO₂, our model generates increases in NPP of 30.2–36.5%. The increases in NPP and litter inputs to the soil more than compensate for any climate stimulation of decomposition and lead to increases in global TEC of 15.4–18.2%.     

Mitigating methane emissions from livestock: a global analysis of sectoral policies

Methane emissions from livestock enteric fermentation and manure management represent about 40% of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector and are projected to increase substantially in the coming decades, with most of the growth occurring in non-Annex 1 countries. To mitigate livestock methane, incentive policies based on producer-level emissions are generally not feasible because of high administrative costs and producer transaction costs. In contrast, incentive policies based on sectoral emissions are likely administratively feasible, even in developing countries. This study uses an economic model of global agriculture to estimate the effects of two sectoral mitigation policies: a carbon tax and an emissions trading scheme based on average national methane emissions per unit of commodity. The analysis shows how the composition and location of livestock production and emissions change in response to the policies. Results illustrate the importance of global mitigation efforts: when policies are limited to Annex 1 countries, increased methane emissions in non-Annex 1 countries offset approximately two-thirds of Annex 1 emissions reductions. While non-Annex 1 countries face substantial disincentives to enacting domestic carbon taxes, developing countries could benefit from participating in a global sectoral emissions trading scheme. We illustrate one scheme in which non-Annex 1 countries collectively earn USD 2.4 billion annually from methane emission permit sales when methane is priced at USD 30/t CO₂-eq.     

A GCM study of future climate response to aerosol pollution reductions

We use the global atmospheric GCM aerosol model ECHAM5-HAM to asses possible impacts of future air pollution mitigation strategies on climate. Air quality control strategies focus on the reduction of aerosol emissions. Here we investigate the extreme case of a maximum feasible end-of-pipe abatement of aerosols in the near term future (2030) in combination with increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations. The temperature response of increasing GHG concentrations and reduced aerosol emissions leads to a global annual mean equilibrium temperature response of 2.18 K. When aerosols are maximally abated only in the Industry and Powerplant sector, while other sectors stay with currently enforced regulations, the temperature response is 1.89 K. A maximum feasible abatement applied in the Domestic and Transport sector, while other sectors remain with the current legislation, leads to a temperature response of 1.39 K. Increasing GHG concentrations alone lead to a temperature response of 1.20 K. We also simulate 2–5% increases in global mean precipitation among all scenarios considered, and the hydrological sensitivity is found to be significantly higher for aerosols than for GHGs. Our study, thus highlights the huge potential impact of future air pollution mitigation strategies on climate and supports the need for urgent GHG emission reductions. GHG and aerosol forcings are not independent as both affect and are influenced by changes in the hydrological cycle. However, within the given range of changes in aerosol emissions and GHG concentrations considered in this study, the climate response towards increasing GHG concentrations and decreasing aerosols emissions is additive.     

Net primary production of terrestrial ecosystems from 2000 to 2009

The CASA (Carnegie-Ames-Stanford) ecosystem model has been used to estimate monthly carbon fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems from 2000 to 2009, with global data inputs from NASA??s Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) vegetation cover mapping. Net primary production (NPP) flux for atmospheric carbon dioxide has varied slightly from year-to-year, but was predicted to have increased over short multi-year periods in the regions of the high-latitude Northern Hemisphere, South Asia, Central Africa, and the western Amazon since the year 2000. These CASA results for global NPP were found to be in contrast to other recently published modeling trends for terrestrial NPP with high sensitivity to regional drying patterns. Nonetheless, periodic declines in regional NPP were predicted by CASA for the southern and western Untied States, the southern Amazon, and southern and eastern Africa. NPP in tropical forest zones was examined in greater detail to discover lower annual production values than previously reported in many global models across the tropical rainforest zones, likely due to the enhanced detection of lower production ecosystems replacing primary rainforest.     

Earth System Model FGOALS-s2: Coupling a dynamic global vegetation and terrestrial carbon model with the physical climate system model

Earth System Models （ESMs） are fundamental tools for understanding climate-carbon feedback. An ESM version of the Flexible Global Ocean-Atmosphere-Land System model （FGOALS） was recently developed within the IPCC AR5 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 （CMIP5） modeling framework, and we describe the development of this model through the coupling of a dynamic global vegetation and terrestrial carbon model with FGOALS-s2. The performance of the coupled model is evaluated as follows. The simulated global total terrestrial gross primary production （GPP） is 124.4 PgC yr-I and net pri- mary production （NPP） is 50.9 PgC yr-1. The entire terrestrial carbon pools contain about 2009.9 PgC, comprising 628.2 PgC and 1381.6 PgC in vegetation and soil pools, respectively. Spatially, in the tropics, the seasonal cycle of NPP and net ecosystem production （NEP） exhibits a dipole mode across the equator due to migration of the monsoon rainbelt, while the seasonal cycle is not so significant in Leaf Area Index （LAI）. In the subtropics, especially in the East Asian monsoon region, the seasonal cycle is obvious due to changes in temperature and precipitation from boreal winter to summer. Vegetation productivity in the northern mid-high latitudes is too low, possibly due to low soil moisture there. On the interannual timescale, the terrestrial ecosystem shows a strong response to ENSO. The model- simulated Nifio3.4 index and total terrestrial NEP are both characterized by a broad spectral peak in the range of 2-7 years. Further analysis indicates their correlation coefficient reaches -0.7 when NEP lags the Nifio3.4 index for about 1-2 months.