Global spatial distribution of vegetation and 20-years dynamic changes

Abstract Global spatial distribution of vegetation is determined jointly by climate, monsoon, ocean current and human activities. In recent decades, surface changes caused global warming, extreme climate events intensified activities need a further understood. this paper, we adopted available MODIS land cover dataset (MCD12Q1) to investigate the feature sand dynamics during past 20 years. Results show that: (1) pattern formed long-term ecosystem evolution exhibits stable with less variation in both latitude vertical dimensions. Generally, percent forest, shrubland, grass cropland respectively are 15.27%, 9.39%, 39.46% 8.91% covers, distinct transition trend from rainforest at equator region moss lichen north south pole. (2) years, forest decreased 3.0×10 5 km 2 , an average annual decrease 1.255%, open shrubs experienced slight fluctuations 2001-2017 increased sharply 1.6×10 2017-2018. And grassland, croplands cropland/natural mosaics had different degrees growth rate, dynamic increase 0.021%, 0.019% 0.502%, respectively. (3) There about 4.2×10 6 changed into grassland West Siberia Amazon, 2.5×10 shrubs, as well 1.9×10 farmland, 9.4×10 4 shrubs.