That GFC study contradicts the many studies using both older datasets and newer datasets:

CAS: https://english.cas.cn/newsroom/mutimedia_news/202203/t20220322_302792.shtml

UNESCO: http://www.unesco-hist.org/index.php?r=en/article/info&id=1714

Journal of Geophysical Research: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2022JG007101

Remote Sensing: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/13/13/2592

International Journal of Remote Sensing: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01431161.2021.2022804

International Journal of Digital Earth: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17538947.2023.2190625

In science, we call this "cherrypicking data." Colloquially, we understand this to be because someone fucked their experimental validation. In the real world, we call this "disseminating misinformation."

global-scale data cannot reasonably represent changes in the regional land cover. Moreover, different studies may have different accuracies within the same region and even may reach opposite conclusions