Seasonal compensation implied no weakening of the land carbon sink under 2015/2016 El Niño in the Northern Hemisphere

The historically recurring strong El Niño events ubiquitously reduce vegetation growth and the land carbon sink over Northern Hemisphere . However, we reported here a pervasive and continuous vegetation greening and no weakening land carbon sink in growing-season (April-October) of 2015 over northern hemisphere during the extreme 2015/2016 El Niño event, from multiple evidence from remote sensing observations, global ecosystem model simulations and atmospheric inversions. We found a pervasive compensation of enhanced vegetation growth in spring on summer/autumn vegetation growth that allowed the annual vegetation greening to continue and leads to a slight increase in land carbon sink over the growing-season (in average of of net ecosystem exchange from two independent datasets). This seasonal compensation effect could significantly alleviate the adverse impacts of 2015/2016 El Niño event on vegetation growth during its blooming stage . The legacy effect of water supply during pre-growing -season ( November of previous year to March of current year) on subsequent vegetation growth last approximately up to two seasons . Our findings highlighted the significant role of seasonal compensation effect on mediating the land carbon sink in response to episodic extreme climate events , and provided insight into the response of terrestrial ecosystem functioning in response to a global climate anomaly.