**5. Conclusions**

This study revealed a substantial difference between phenology extracted using satellite-derived SIF and EVI data across areas limited by different climatic factors (temperature, radiance, water). We inferred that the differences between SIF-based phenology and EVI-based phenology have a close relationship with their different responses to climate limitations. The higher climatic limitation index could result in larger differences in phenology derived from SIF and EVI for each dominant climatic limitation area. The phenology extracted using SIF was more correlated with climatic limitations than that using EVI, especially in water-limited areas, making it the main cause of the difference between phenology extracted using SIF and EVI. These findings improved our understanding of land surface phenology from greenness and photosynthesis perspectives and provided insight into the mechanistic differences between SIF and EVI in characterizing land surface phenology.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, Q.H.; methodology, C.W. and S.L.; validation, Y.W. and Q.X.; resources, J.H. and Y.C.; writing—original draft preparation, C.W.; writing—review and editing, Q.H., Y.W., S.L., Q.X., J.H. and Y.C. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42101391, 41901380), the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST (2020QNRC001), the "Soil and Water Conservation Monitoring Research in Hubei Province" project (2017052601) funded by Hubei Anyuan Safety and Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. (Wuhan, China), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (CCNU21XJ028, CCNU20QN032), and the fellowship of the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2021M701361). Qiaoyun Xie acknowledges support from the University of Technology Sydney Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** The data used to support the findings of this study are included within the article.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
