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Drought, a recurring phenomenon with major impacts on both human and natural systems^,,, is the most widespread climatic extreme that negatively affects the land carbon sink^,. Although twentieth-century trends in drought regimes are ambiguous^,,, across many regions more frequent and severe droughts are expected in the twenty-first century^,,,. Recovery time—how long an ecosystem requires to revert to its pre-drought functional state—is a critical metric of drought impact. Yet the factors influencing drought recovery and its spatiotemporal patterns at the global scale are largely unknown. Here we analyse three independent datasets of gross primary productivity and show that, across diverse ecosystems, drought recovery times are strongly associated with climate and carbon cycle dynamics, with biodiversity and CO₂ fertilization as secondary factors. Our analysis also provides two key insights into the …