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• Temporal change in relationship between NDVI and diurnal temperature was explored. • R NDVI-TMX and R NDVI-TMN showed distinct variations between mid- and high latitudes. • Weakening effect of TMX on vegetation growth was more apparent than that of TMN. • TRENDY models didn't capture dynamic relation of vegetation growth to TMX or TMN. Global warming has boosted vegetation growth to a large extent, but this stimulation effect has significantly weakened in recent years. Among the set of possible driving forces, the asymmetric daytime and nighttime warming effect has been largely neglected. To improve our understanding on the relationship between vegetation growth and global warming, this study tries to attribute the respective effects of daytime and nighttime temperature on vegetation growth and reveal their temporal trends in the extratropical Northern Hemisphere (30–90 °N). The results showed there had been significant warming trends in growing season maximum (TMX, 0.37 °C per decade) and minimum temperatures (TMN, 0.38 °C per decade) during 1982–2015, especially in high latitudes of the NH. Under the asymmetric diurnal warming, the effects of TMX and TMN on normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) exhibited distinct temporal variations between mid- (<55 °N) and high latitudes (>55 °N). The positive correlation between NDVI and TMX (R NDVI-TMX) weakened in high latitudes, as well as the negative correlation between NDVI and TMN (R NDVI-TMN). However, the R NDVI-TMX and R NDVI-TMN changed little in mid-latitudes. Moreover, the weakening effect of TMX on NDVI was more apparent than that of TMN in high latitudes. The area with significantly (p < 0.1) positive R NDVI-TMX and significantly (p < 0.1) negative R NDVI-TMN both shrank from 1982–1998 to 1999–2015, with prior (15.97%) twice the latter one (7.09%) in shrunk area in high latitudes. With regard to vegetation type, decline in area with significantly (p < 0.1) positive R NDVI-TMX and negative R NDVI-TMN was extremely obvious in savannas, deciduous broadleaf forests and deciduous needleleaf forests. Besides, we also disclosed the poor performance of ecosystem process models in capturing the dynamic relationship between vegetation growth and diurnal temperature, which might be caused by their totally relying on diurnal mean temperature, instead of daytime and nighttime temperature, in forcing the models. This study can further advance our understandings on ecosystem responses to climate warming, and efficiently improve performance of ecosystem models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]