Declining snow cover may affect spring phenological trend on the Tibetan Plateau

Zhang et al. (1) report that the Tibetan Plateau experienced a continuous advancing start of green-up date (SOS) from 1982 to 2011 based on the merged Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS)-based with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) [Systeme Pour l’Observation de la Terre vegetation (SPOT-VGT)]-based SOSs. It challenged the previous contention that plants over the Tibetan Plateau failed to fulfill vegetation chilling due to continuous winter warming (2) and provided the evidence that spring phenology advancement was consistent with observed warming in springs and winters over the last three decades. The results have significant implications for understanding responses of spring phenology to temperature under climate change.