## 3 Results
### Climate Trends  
Precipitation showed mostly increasing trends for both deciduous-broadleaved forests and grasslands patches (Figure 4a). For deciduous-broadleaved forests, wet-year, growing-season, and nongrowing-season precipitation increased at the rates of \(6.78\pm 0.13\), \(5.76\pm 0.15\), and \(1.08\pm 0.05\) mm yr\({}^{-1}\), respectively. For those forest patches with positive significant slopes, i.e., slopes significantly greater than 0 at \(p<0.05\) (one-tail test), these rates are \(10.05\pm 0.25\) (n = 115), \(10.29\pm 0.31\) (n = 120), and \(2.57\pm 0.05\) (n = 82) mm yr\({}^{-1}\), respectively. On the other hand, the slopes of precipitation of the grassland patches during wet year, growing season, and nongrowing season are \(3.96\pm 0.34\), \(4.15\pm 0.32\), and \(-0.13\pm 0.05\) mm yr\({}^{-1}\), respectively. However, the negative precipitation trends are found mostly distributed in the west within desert steppe whereas positive trends were mostly found in the east, a pattern similar to the spatial distribution of EVI trends (Figures 2 and 4a). The mean and standard error of the positive significant precipitation slopes, that is, significantly greater than 0 at \(p<\)0.05, are \(11.73\pm 0.17\) (n = 82), \(11.38\pm 0.22\) (n = 95), and \(1.55\pm 0.05\) (n = 49) mm yr\({}^{-1}\), respectively for wet year, growing season, and nongrowing season.  
The trends of temperature also showed sharp comparison between the forests and the grasslands. Minimum temperature increased during growing season but decreased during nongrowing season for the deciduous-broadleaved forest patches in the east (Figure 4b). The slopes in wet-year, growing-season, and nongrowing-season \(T_{\rm min}\) are \(0.001\pm 0.001\), \(0.037\pm 0.002\), and \(-0.025\pm 0.001\)\({}^{\circ}\)C yr\({}^{-1}\), respectively. For those patches with positive slopes significantly greater than 0 at \(p<0.05\), \(T_{\rm min}\) increased in growing season at \(0.07\pm 0.001\)\({}^{\circ}\)C yr\({}^{-1}\) (n = 330). In contrast to the trend of \(T_{\rm min}\) for deciduous-broadleaved forests, the \(T_{\rm min}\) slopes of grassland patches are \(0.011\pm 0.002\), \(0.003\pm 0.002\), and \(0.016\pm 0.003\)\({}^{\circ}\)C yr\({}^{-1}\) for wet year, growing, and nongrowing season, respectively. For those grassland patches with slopes significantly greater than 0 or lower than 0 at \(p<0.05\) (one-tail test), the mean slope of \(T_{\rm min}\) during growing season is \(0.049\pm 0.002\) (n = 34) for positive slopes and \(-0.08\pm 0.001\) (n = 13)\({}^{\circ}\)C yr\({}^{-1}\) for negative slopes. The nongrowing-season \(T_{\rm max}\) also mostly decreased with mean of \(-0.016\pm 0.001\)\({}^{\circ}\)C yr\({}^{-1}\) (Figure 4c) for the forest patches, however, none of the trends are significant. \(T_{\rm max}\) mostly decreased for the grasslands patches during the growing season with mean slope of \(-0.039\pm 0.003\) for all patches, and \(-0.095\pm 0.001\)\({}^{\circ}\)C yr\({}^{-1}\) for 61 patches with significant negative slopes (significantly lower than 0 at \(p<0.05\)). However, \(T_{\rm max}\) mostly increased during the nongrowing season with mean of \(0.034\pm 0.002\)\({}^{\circ}\)C yr\({}^{-1}\). The decreased maximum temperature of the grassland patches in the growing season may be a result of the increasing precipitation.