The global temperature has increased approximately 0.9°C over the past 50 years and is projected to continue to increase. Many efforts have been taken to investigate the evolutionary dynamics of climate classification zones in response to the rising temperature. However, the changing dynamics of the spatial climate patterns remain poorly understood. It is thus desired that the unobserved characteristics of the global climate patterns, such as aggregation and subdivision, are explored from the landscape perspective. Here, we demonstrate that the global climate zones have undergone a process of aggregation during the past 100 years and that this dynamic is expected to continue in the future. The climate aggregation effect is especially evident in the Arctic, Tibet, and East Africa. We find that the tropical, arid, temperate, and cold climates are aggregating while the polar climate zone exhibits subdivision. Furthermore, our analysis demonstrates a clear spatial aggregation process with a latitudinal feature. We should pay enough attention to the phenomenon of patch aggregation of global climate landscape pattern, which will undoubtedly help us to deepen our understanding of global climate change and help to further explore the feedback relationship between climate and biological systems.

Climate change represents a profound threat to the diversity and stability of global climate zones. However, the complex interplay between climate change and elevation in shaping climate heterogeneity is not yet fully understood. Here, we combine Shannon's diversity index (SHDI) with the Köppen‐Geiger climate classification to explore the altitudinal distributions of global climate heterogeneity; and their responses to climate change. The study reveals a distinctive pattern: SHDI, a proxy for climate heterogeneity tends to slow down or decline at lower elevations with increasing temperatures, while at higher elevations, it continues to rise due to continuing cold conditions. Examination of climate simulations, both with and without anthropogenic forcing, confirms that observed changes in climate heterogeneity are primarily attributable to anthropogenic climate change within these high‐elevation regions. This study underscores the importance of high‐elevation regions as not only custodians of diverse climate types but also potential refuges for species fleeing warmer climates.

Microclimate heterogeneity in Southeast Asia and its implications for biodiversity remain understudied. We investigated microclimate changes between 1982 and 2017 using high‐resolution data and a patch‐mosaic model. Our findings reveal a decline in microclimate heterogeneity (as indicated by Shannon's diversity index) and a significant increase in elevation. Topographical factors (∼50.6%) and climatic factors (∼21.5%) primarily influenced the decline. Spatial heterogeneity weakened with larger moving windows and coarser grid‐scale data sets. Our study suggests that shifting mountainous microclimates play a crucial role in mediating biodiversity in Southeast Asia.

Emerging and disappearing climate zones are frequently used to diagnose and project climate change. However, little attempt has been made to quantify shifts of climate zones in Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau (QTP) based on the high‐resolution data sets. Our results show that highland climate was decreased substantially during 1961–2011 and were mainly replaced by boreal climate. We also found that the mean elevation of boreal and highland climate continues to rise, with obvious longitudinal geographical characteristics over the study period. Furthermore, we found that the climate spaces (a climate space defined as the volume of 10°C × 500 mm here) of both boreal and highland climate types tend to be warm and humid ones, which may provide more suitable climate conditions for species to maintain and promote diversity. Characterization of changes in QTP climate types deepens our understanding of regional climate and its biological impacts.

Shifting climate zones are widely used to diagnose and predict regional climate change. However, few attempts have been made to measure the spatial redistribution of these climate zones from a spatial structure perspective. We investigated changes in spatial structure of Köppen climate landscape in China between 1963 and 2098 with a landscape aggregation index. Our results reveal an apparent signal from fragmentation to aggregation, accompanied by the intensification of areal dispersion between cold and warm climate types. Our attribution analysis indicates that anthropogenic forcings have a larger influence on changes of spatial structure than natural variation. We also found that topographical heterogeneity is likely to contribute to the regional spatial fragmentation, especially in the Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau. However, we also found that the spatial fragmentation will be weakened around the mid‐2040s. We argue that biodiversity is likely to be mediated by spatial structure of future climate landscapes in China.