Vegetation types are generally classified based only on remote sensing vegetation data, and yet they cannot reflect their connection with climate. Climatic vegetation types reflect the regional vegetation characteristics in terms of climate. The distribution of global climatic vegetation types were identified by K‐means method based on vegetation and climate data. Fourteen climatic vegetation types were classified based on vegetation and climate data. Every type had distinct climate and vegetation characteristics. The regions with similar normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) values but with different climate values such as tropical desert and temperate desert could be distinguished. Our new updated climatic vegetation types agreed ‘fair’ with Koeppen climate types and climate type of Zhang and Yan while agreed ‘good’ with vegetation types when checked with Kappa test.

Permafrost degradation due to rapid increase in ground surface temperature (GST) in recent years may strongly affect boreal forest ecosystems. However, comparatively few studies have explored how changes in permafrost affect tree growth dynamics in boreal forest. Here, we used a tree ring network of 12 Dahurian larch (Larix gmelinii) sites across permafrost regions in northeast China. We observed an increase in L. gmelinii growth over the past decade, seemingly linked to a shift in their climatic limitations, where winter GST has become the most strongly limiting factor for L. gmelinii growth. The recent increase in growth was particularly strong in older trees (>300 years), which could be related to older trees having a more developed root system. GST was the main limiting factor for tree growth. While summer GST had a somewhat consistently positive correlation with tree growth, winter GST has shifted from a negative to a strongly positive correlation with growth in the last decade, coincidental with a sharp increase in winter GST since 2004. Winter GST is also strongly correlated with the rapidly thawing permafrost dynamics. Overall, our results suggest a link between recent changes in the permafrost and shifts in climate‐growth correlations for one of the main boreal tree species. As a result, L. gmelinii has experienced an important increase in radial growth that may indicate that, unlike what has been reported for other boreal species, it may temporally benefit from warming climate in the continuous permafrost region of the Asian boreal forests.

To explore how climatic factors influence tree growth within the context of global climate changes, we used a dendroclimatological analysis to understand the response of Larix gmelinii to climatic variations along a broad latitudinal gradient from 47.27° to 52.66° N in the Greater Khingan Mountains of Northeastern China. The growth-limiting climate factors and a detailed association between radial growth and climate were identified along the gradient using redundancy analysis (RDA) and standard correlation function analysis over the period 1960–2013. The results showed that temperatures during current June to July represented the most important factor affecting tree radial growth in the study area. Across all studied latitudes, Larix gmelinii growth might be decreasing in radial growth due to higher monthly maximum temperature (Tmax) and monthly mean temperatures (Tm) in the current June, especially for the stands at low and middle latitudes. With continued warming, Larix gmelinii radial growth at high latitudes (e.g., Mangui (MG) and Mohe (MH)) might be reduced by warmer temperatures in July. In addition, Larix gmelinii might be decreasing in radial growth from decreasing precipitation. Our results show that there is a decreasing trend in Larix gmelinii radial growth under the observed general increase of temperatures in the Greater Khingan Mountains in recent years.