ENSO amplifies global vegetation resilience variability in a changing climate

A thorough understanding of vegetation resilience to climate variability is critical for sustaining ecosystem functions and terrestrial carbon sinks. Although the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is well-established as a key driver of global extreme weather events and vegetation dynamics, its impacts on vegetation resilience remain poorly understood. Here we estimated global present-day (1981–2018) and future (2015–2100) vegetation resilience using a 1-lag autocorrelation analysis of global leaf area index (LAI) time series, and investigate its teleconnection to ENSO. Our findings reveal that ENSO significantly affects vegetation resilience across 51% of the global land area, where 68% of vegetation resilience anomalies are directly attributed to ENSO, while the remaining 32% result from ENSO-climate interaction. Future projections suggest a 7–10% expansion in the area where ENSO-climate interactions affect resilience, with Eastern Siberia and northern North America newly affected. Our findings underscore the ENSO’s critical role in shaping vegetation resilience and highlight the need to integrate ENSO prediction into ecological restoration and climate-informed global ecological governance.