Twentieth century redistribution in climatic drivers of global tree growth

Energy and water limitations of tree growth remain insufficiently understood at large spatiotemporal scales, hindering model representation of interannual or longer-term ecosystemprocesses. By assessing and statistically scaling the climatic drivers from2710 tree-ring sites, we identified the boreal and temperate land areas where tree growth during 1930–1960 CE responded positively to temperature (20.8 ± 3.7Mio km2; 25.9 ± 4.6%), precipitation (77.5 ± 3.3Mio km2; 96.4 ± 4.1%), and other parameters. The spatial manifestation of this climate response is determined by latitudinal and altitudinal temperature gradients, indicating that warming leads to geographic shifts in growth limitations. We observed a significant (P < 0.001) decrease in temperature response at cold-dry sites between 1930–1960 and 1960–1990 CE, and the total temperature-limited area shrunk by −8.7 ± 0.6 Mio km2. Simultaneously, trees became more limited by atmosphericwater demand almost worldwide. These changes occurred under mild warming, andwe expect that continued climate change will trigger a major redistribution in growth responses to climate