“This paper suggests a mechanism between plant growth and global warming “warmer planet, greener north” that has important global socio-economic implications.”

I think that my paper is highly cited because it provides large-scale evidence of "a greener north" based on analysis of NASA’s 20-year satellite data and for the first time, the relationship between the greening and temperature changes observed from meteorological stations.

I believe that this paper describes two important discoveries. One is that the Earth is becoming much greener, the spring has advanced by several days, and the growing season has lengthened by 12-18 days in the northern part of the hemisphere since the 1980s. And another is that year-to-year changes in growth and the duration of the growing season of northern vegetation are tightly linked to those changes in observed land surface temperature.

This paper suggests a mechanism between plant growth and global warming—warmer planet, greener north—that has important global socio-economic implications. Plants uptake carbon dioxide (a primary greenhouse gas) and transfer it into long-term storage in wood through photosynthesis. Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (a buildup primarily related to fossil fuel burning and deforestation) is suspected of causing global warming, changes in weather patterns, and health effects. Warming-enhanced plant photosynthesis may modify the carbon cycle and thus our future climate.