A warmer growing season triggers earlier following spring phenology

Under global warming, advances in spring phenology due to the rising temperature have been widely reported. However, the mechanisms underlying the warming-induced earlier spring phenology remain poorly understood. Here, using multiple long-term and large-scale phenological datasets between 1951 and 2018, we show that warmer temperatures during the previous growing season between May and September led to earlier spring phenology in the Northern Hemisphere. We also found that warming-induced increases in maximum photosynthetic rate in the previous year advanced spring phenology. Furthermore, we found a significant decline in the advancing effect of warming during previous growing season on spring phenology from cold to warm periods over the past decades. Our results suggest that observed warming-induced earlier spring phenology may be driven by increased photosynthetic carbon assimilation in the previous season, while the slowdown in the advanced spring phenology is likely due to decreased carbon assimilation when warming exceeding the optimal temperatures for photosynthesis. Our study suggested the vital role of photosynthetic carbon assimilation during growing season in spring phenology under global warming.