Abstract
Vegetation stability is vulnerable to climate change in Central Asia.
However, how future climate variations and extremes influence the
vegetation stability in Central Asia has not been well understood. In
this study, we investigated future vegetation stability quantified by
the variability of vegetation productivity and attribution to climatic
variation and negative extremes in Central Asia under four Shared
Socioeconomic Pathways scenarios (SSPs) during 2021-2100, using Coupled
Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 simulations. We found that the
interannual variability (IAV) of Net Primary Production (NPP) would be
larger under higher anthropogenic emissions scenarios. The standard
deviation of NPP IAV increases from 64.55 Tg C yr -1
under SSP1-2.6 to 78.01 Tg C y r -1 under SSP5-8.5.
The north of Central Asia accounts for the largest contribution (48%
-53%) to Central Asia’s NPP IAV under SSP1-2.6 to SSP5-8.5. Compared to
temperature IAV, precipitation IAV exerts a larger contribution to NPP
IAV in Central Asia, due to the higher sensitivity of NPP IAV to
precipitation IAV. Dry conditions are the main climate extremes causing
negative NPP extremes in Central Asia, especially in the north and
southeast of Central Asia. Our findings identify the northern and
southeastern regions with higher instability posed by future climate
changes in Central Asia, and provide scientific guidance for regional
water management to mitigate ecosystem instability.