Summer drought weakens land surface cooling of tundra vegetation
Siberia experienced a prolonged heatwave in the spring of 2020, resulting in extreme summer drought and major wildfires in the North-Eastern Siberian lowland tundra. In the Arctic tundra, plants play a key role in regulating the summer land surface energy budget by contributing to land surface cooli...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IOP Publishing
2024-01-01
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| Series: | Environmental Research Letters |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad345e |
| _version_ | 1827311477069971456 |
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| author | Nils Rietze Jakob J Assmann Elena Plekhanova Kathrin Naegeli Alexander Damm Trofim C Maximov Sergey V Karsanaev Geert Hensgens Gabriela Schaepman-Strub |
| author_facet | Nils Rietze Jakob J Assmann Elena Plekhanova Kathrin Naegeli Alexander Damm Trofim C Maximov Sergey V Karsanaev Geert Hensgens Gabriela Schaepman-Strub |
| author_sort | Nils Rietze |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Siberia experienced a prolonged heatwave in the spring of 2020, resulting in extreme summer drought and major wildfires in the North-Eastern Siberian lowland tundra. In the Arctic tundra, plants play a key role in regulating the summer land surface energy budget by contributing to land surface cooling through evapotranspiration. Yet we know little about how drought conditions impact land surface cooling by tundra plant communities, potentially contributing to high air temperatures through a positive plant-mediated feedback. Here we used high-resolution land surface temperature and vegetation maps based on drone imagery to determine the impact of an extreme summer drought on land surface cooling in the lowland tundra of North-Eastern Siberia. We found that land surface cooling differed strongly among plant communities between the drought year 2020 and the reference year 2021. Further, we observed a decrease in the normalized land surface cooling (measured as water deficit index) in the drought year 2020 across all plant communities. This indicates a shift towards an energy budget dominated by sensible heat fluxes, contributing to land surface warming. Overall, our findings suggest significant variation in land surface cooling among common Arctic plant communities in the North-Eastern Siberian lowland tundra and a pronounced effect of drought on all community types. Based on our results, we suggest discriminating between functional tundra plant communities when predicting the drought impacts on energy flux related processes such as land surface cooling, permafrost thaw and wildfires. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-24T20:19:46Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-a67d4446badc4c79879b787581a12da4 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1748-9326 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-24T20:19:46Z |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Environmental Research Letters |
| spelling | doaj.art-a67d4446badc4c79879b787581a12da42024-03-22T09:46:23ZengIOP PublishingEnvironmental Research Letters1748-93262024-01-0119404404310.1088/1748-9326/ad345eSummer drought weakens land surface cooling of tundra vegetationNils Rietze0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7232-7799Jakob J Assmann1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3492-8419Elena Plekhanova2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5727-9175Kathrin Naegeli3https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2443-7154Alexander Damm4https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8965-3427Trofim C Maximov5Sergey V Karsanaev6https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4055-381XGeert Hensgens7https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6511-7224Gabriela Schaepman-Strub8https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4069-1884Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich , Zurich, Switzerland; Department of Geography, University of Zurich , Zurich, SwitzerlandDepartment of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich , Zurich, SwitzerlandDepartment of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich , Zurich, SwitzerlandDepartment of Geography, University of Zurich , Zurich, SwitzerlandDepartment of Geography, University of Zurich , Zurich, Switzerland; Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology , 8600 Dübendorf, SwitzerlandInstitute for Biological Problems of the Cryolithozone, Siberian Branch Russian Academy of Sciences , Yakutsk, RussiaInstitute for Biological Problems of the Cryolithozone, Siberian Branch Russian Academy of Sciences , Yakutsk, RussiaDepartment of Earth and Climate, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam , Amsterdam, The NetherlandsDepartment of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich , Zurich, SwitzerlandSiberia experienced a prolonged heatwave in the spring of 2020, resulting in extreme summer drought and major wildfires in the North-Eastern Siberian lowland tundra. In the Arctic tundra, plants play a key role in regulating the summer land surface energy budget by contributing to land surface cooling through evapotranspiration. Yet we know little about how drought conditions impact land surface cooling by tundra plant communities, potentially contributing to high air temperatures through a positive plant-mediated feedback. Here we used high-resolution land surface temperature and vegetation maps based on drone imagery to determine the impact of an extreme summer drought on land surface cooling in the lowland tundra of North-Eastern Siberia. We found that land surface cooling differed strongly among plant communities between the drought year 2020 and the reference year 2021. Further, we observed a decrease in the normalized land surface cooling (measured as water deficit index) in the drought year 2020 across all plant communities. This indicates a shift towards an energy budget dominated by sensible heat fluxes, contributing to land surface warming. Overall, our findings suggest significant variation in land surface cooling among common Arctic plant communities in the North-Eastern Siberian lowland tundra and a pronounced effect of drought on all community types. Based on our results, we suggest discriminating between functional tundra plant communities when predicting the drought impacts on energy flux related processes such as land surface cooling, permafrost thaw and wildfires.https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad345eArctictundradroughtSiberialand surface temperaturedrones |
| spellingShingle | Nils Rietze Jakob J Assmann Elena Plekhanova Kathrin Naegeli Alexander Damm Trofim C Maximov Sergey V Karsanaev Geert Hensgens Gabriela Schaepman-Strub Summer drought weakens land surface cooling of tundra vegetation Environmental Research Letters Arctic tundra drought Siberia land surface temperature drones |
| title | Summer drought weakens land surface cooling of tundra vegetation |
| title_full | Summer drought weakens land surface cooling of tundra vegetation |
| title_fullStr | Summer drought weakens land surface cooling of tundra vegetation |
| title_full_unstemmed | Summer drought weakens land surface cooling of tundra vegetation |
| title_short | Summer drought weakens land surface cooling of tundra vegetation |
| title_sort | summer drought weakens land surface cooling of tundra vegetation |
| topic | Arctic tundra drought Siberia land surface temperature drones |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad345e |
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