Thermal Growing Season Characteristics over Central and Southeast Europe in the Changing Climate 1950-2019

The ongoing climate change is profoundly important for ecosystems, for all sectors of the international economy, and on the quality of life. Managed systems as agriculture and forestry are evidently most dependent on climate and the climate changes have a direct and indirect impact on biotic and abiotic disturbances with strong implications. Among others, temperature is one of the major environmental factors affecting the growth, development, and yields of crops. The timing of the onset and termination of the vegetation growing season plays a key role in terrestrial ecosystem carbon and nutrient cycles. Based on the availability of reliable and up-to-date sources of information, which represent the temperature distribution in a pan-European context, the study exploits a set of 4 indicators with a special focus on the onset, termination, and length of the thermal growing season. It is defined by a single-value threshold of the daily mean air temperature. Two thresholds are applied: 5°C and 10°C. Among other conclusions, the study provides strong evidences for the prolongation of the thermal growing season. This lengthening is a direct consequence of the ongoing warming and is consistent with most new studies. Another key message, which confirms our recent findings is the revealed asymmetry of this prolongation: the total lengthening of the thermal growing season is caused in greater extent to the shifting to an earlier date of the onset, rather than to its later termination.