Land Surface Greening and CO₂ Fertilization More than Offset the Gross Carbon Sequestration Decline Caused by Land Cover Change and the Enhanced Vapour Pressure Deficit in Europe

Satellite observations have revealed strong land surface “greening” (i.e., increases in vegetation greenness or leaf area index (LAI)) in the Northern Hemisphere over the past few decades. European terrestrial ecosystems are a greening hotspot, but how they respond to land surface greening, climate change, CO₂ fertilization, land use and land cover change (LULCC) and other factors is unclear. Here, we assessed how these interacting factors might be combined to alter terrestrial gross primary production (GPP) throughout Europe during the period of 2001 to 2016 using a process-based Farquhar GPP model (i.e., FGM). We found a more productive European terrestrial ecosystem and most of the GPP enhancement in Europe was explained by increases in LAI (62%) and atmospheric CO₂ concentration (29%). Spatially, the spatial signature of the LAI and GPP trends both suggested widespread (72–73% of the vegetated area) greening phenomena across Europe, among which 23.7% and 13.3% were statistically significant (p < 0.05). The interannual trend of GPP estimated by the FGM (0.55% yr⁻¹) was reasonable compared with other GPP products (0.47% yr⁻¹ to 0.92% yr⁻¹) and the observed LAI increasing rate (0.62% yr⁻¹). FGM factorial simulations suggested that land surface greening (+35.5 Pg C yr⁻², p < 0.01), CO₂ fertilization (+16.9 Pg C yr⁻², p < 0.01), temperature warming (+3.7 Pg C yr⁻², p < 0.05), and enhanced downwards solar radiation (+1.2 Pg C yr⁻², p > 0.05) contributed to the GPP enhancement, while the enhanced vapour pressure deficit (−5.6 Tg C yr⁻², p < 0.01) had significant negative impacts on GPP, especially in 2006 and 2012, when extreme droughts struck south-eastern Europe. Meanwhile, approximately 1.8% of the total area of Europe experienced LULCC from 2001 to 2016 and LULCC exerted a small but significant (−1.3 Tg C yr⁻², p < 0.01) impact on GPP due to decreases in the total number of vegetated pixels (−159 pixels yr⁻¹). Although the LULCC effect was negative, the largest increase occurred in forested land (+0.9% of total area). In addition, the increasing trends for the annual mean LAI (0.01 m² m⁻² yr⁻¹, p < 0.001) and total GPP (22.2 Tg C yr⁻², p < 0.001) of forests were more significant and higher than those of other vegetation types, suggesting that European forests may continue to play important roles in combating climate change in the future with long-lasting carbon storage potential. These results provide the first systematic quantitative analysis of the driving force of enhanced gross carbon assimilation by European ecosystems by considering variations in leaf physiological traits with environmental adaptations.