Abstract: Facing the profound impacts of intensifying climate warming on terrestrial ecosystems, eco-meteorology, as an emerging discipline within earth system science, plays a crucial role in addressing ecological and climate risks. Research paradigms have shifted from single-factor to multi-factor synergy, from mean climate conditions to compound extremes, and from linear to nonlinear responses. Over the past 5 years, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences (CAMS) has achieved prominent progress in eco-meteorology, with key advancements are summarized as follows.
First, a three-dimensional “space-air-ground” integrated monitoring network has been established, supporting nationwide stage-sowing experiments, long-term eddy covariance flux observations, and multi-source remote sensing datasets. Second, a novel understanding of plant phenology driven by total climatic production factors has been proposed. The phenology simulation model based on cumulative climatic production potential captures nonlinear responses and critical thresholds. Third, the nonlinear regulatory mechanisms of ecosystem water-carbon exchange under climate warming have been elucidated. Plant functional traits are found to follow a global “acquisition-conservation” trade-off along the leaf economic spectrum, shaped by precipitation and temperature. Nevertheless, rapid warming can decouple these trait relationships, thereby reducing ecosystem resilience. Fourth, plant drought disaster thresholds have been identified, and a comprehensive drought index (CDI) integrating meteorological, soil and vegetation drought has been developed, improving national drought monitoring accuracy by over 20%. Fifth, the first intelligent national eco-meteorological cloud service platform has been built, integrating artificial intelligence (AI), big data, geographic information system, and 5G technologies for automated data processing, interactive analysis, and one-click generation of monitoring reports.
Based on these advancements, priority research directions for future eco-meteorological studies are proposed: Strengthening the “space-air-ground” integrated monitoring system and deep fusion of multi-source data based on Chinese domestic satellites, thereby enhancing capabilities in land-cover identification and quantitative parameter retrieval over complex surfaces; investigating ecological resilience to compound extreme events, with a focus on revealing mechanisms of ecosystem resistance, recovery, and regime shifts under multiple environmental stressors; developing next-generation artificial intelligence early warning models to promote the scalability, precision, and intelligence of eco-meteorological services. These efforts are expected to provide robust scientific support for ecological security, disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation under intensifying global warming.