# Constraints to Vegetation Growth Reduced by Region-Specific Changes in Seasonal Climate
## 2 Materials and Methods  
### CMIP5  
CMIP5 is a set of model experiments for assessing past and future climate change in the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change Assessment Report number 5 (IPCC AR5) [19]. To objectively select datasets, the models of CMIP5 data used in this paper met the following criteria. * The models had monthly data of near-surface air temperature (output variable name in the standard output is tas; the other variables are showed the same way hereafter), precipitation (pr), surface downwelling shortwave radiation (rsds), and Leaf Area Index (LAI) (lai) data for the specific years (1875-2005: historical; and 2006-2099: Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5). * The land sub-model had year-to-year changes in LAI. We used three sets of outputs from 21 models from CMIP5 (Table 1). The experiments are: \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Model** & **Modeling Group** & **Land Component** & **N** & **Dynamic** \\  & & **Cycle** & **Vegetation** \\ \hline  & Beijing Climate Center, China & & & \\ bcc-csm1-1 & Meteorological Administration, & AVIM1.0 & N & N \\  & CHINA & & & \\ \hline bcc-csm1-1-m & Meteorological Administration, & AVIM1.0 & N & N \\  & CHINA & & & \\ \hline BNU-ESM & Beijing Normal University, CHINA & CoLM3 \& BNU & - & - \\  & & DGVM (C/N) & & & \\ \hline CanESM2 & Canadian Center for Climate & CLASS2.7 \& & \\  & Modelling and Analysis, CANADA & CTEM1 & N & N \\ \hline CESM1-CAM5 & Community Earth System Model & & & \\  & Contributors, NSF-DOE-NCAR, USA & & & \\ \hline CESM1-WACCM & Community Earth System Model & & & \\  & Contributors, NSF-DOE-NCAR, USA & & & \\ \hline CESM1-BGC & Community Earth System Model & & & \\  & Contributors, NSF-DOE-NCAR, USA & & & \\ \hline GFDL-CM3 & NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics & & & \\  & Laboratory, USA & & & \\ \hline GFDL-ESM2G & NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics & & & \\  & Laboratory, USA & & & \\ \hline GFDL-ESM2M & NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics & & & \\  & Laboratory, USA & & & \\ \hline HadGEM2-ES & Met Office Hadley Centre, UNITED & MOSES2 \& & \\  & KINDOM & TRIFFID & N & Y \\ \hline INMCM4 & Russia & & & \\ \hline IPSL-CM5A-LR & Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace, & & & \\  & FRANCE & & & \\ \hline IPSL-CM5A-MR & Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace, & & & \\  & FRANCE & & & \\ \hline MIROC5 & JAMSTEC, University of Tokyo, and & & & \\  & NIES, JAPAN & SEIB-DGVM & & \\ \hline MIROC-ESM-CHEM & JAMSTEC, University of Tokyo, and & & & \\  & NIES, JAPAN & & & \\ \hline MIROC-ESM & JAMSTEC, University of Tokyo, and & & & \\  & NIES, JAPAN & & & \\ \hline MIROC-ESM & JAMSTEC, University of Tokyo, and & & & \\  & NIES, JAPAN & & & \\ \hline MPI-ESM-LR & Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, & & & \\  & GERMANY & & & \\ \hline MPI-ESM-MR & Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, & & & \\  & GERMANY & & & \\ \hline MPI-ESM1 & Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, & & & \\  & GERMANY & & & \\ \hline NorESM1-ME & Norwegian Climate Centre, NORWAY & CLM4 & Y & N \\ \hline NorESM1-M & Norwegian Climate Centre, NORWAY & CLM4 & Y & N \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) models and the forcing characteristics. Models used in the sensitivity analysis (experiment IDs are esmFixClim1, esmFdbk1, and 1 petCO2) shown in the analysis are highlighted in red. 1. Historical run: Runs covering the historical period 1850-2005. For this period, model forcings include: greenhouse gases (GHG), volcanoes, aerosols, and land cover. 2. RCP 8.5: Projections forced by pre-determined increasing CO\({}_{2}\) concentrations covering 2006 to 2100. For this analysis we chose the RCP 8.5 scenario, a pathway with the highest greenhouse gas emissions, leading to 8.5 W/m\({}^{2}\) radiative forcing at the end of the 21 st century [20]. Although just a decade passed since 2006, it has been reported that the emission concentration in 2100 is projected to follow RCP 8.5 [21]. 3.