Spatiotemporal Evolution Characteristics of GPP and Its Nonlinear Response Mechanisms to Climate Change Across China’s Three Major Forest Regions

Gross primary productivity (GPP) is central to terrestrial carbon cycling and forest carbon sink assessment. Using Google Earth Engine, MODIS GPP, ERA5-Land meteorological data, and forest extent masks, this study examined GPP dynamics and climatic controls in China’s northeast, southern, and southwest forest regions from 2005 to 2025. GPP increased overall in all three regions, with higher values in the south and lower values in the north. Climatic drivers differed regionally: in the northeast, GPP responded positively to temperature, while VPD slightly exceeded temperature in the dominant-control area; in the southern region, temperature was the main driver but VPD remained important; in the southwest, temperature dominated larger areas, whereas moisture-related controls showed stronger spatial heterogeneity. Piecewise analysis identified temperature–VPD turning points of 11.74 °C, 10.43 °C, and 25.64 °C for the northeast, southwest, and southern regions, respectively. Two-dimensional temperature–VPD binning further revealed nonlinear GPP distributions and distinct optimal hydrothermal combinations across regions. These results show that warming effects on forest productivity are region-specific and constrained by atmospheric dryness, providing evidence for assessing China’s forest carbon sink responses to climate change.