Detecting drought impact on terrestrial biosphere carbon fluxes over contiguous US with satellite observations
With projections of increasing drought in the future, understanding how the natural carbon cycle responds to drought events is needed to predict the fate of the land carbon sink and future atmospheric CO _2 concentrations and climate. We quantified the impacts of the 2011 and 2012 droughts on terres...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
IOP Publishing
2018-01-01
|
| Series: | Environmental Research Letters |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aad5ef |
| _version_ | 1797748168019935232 |
|---|---|
| author | Junjie Liu Kevin Bowman Nicholas C Parazoo A Anthony Bloom Debra Wunch Zhe Jiang Kevin R Gurney Dave Schimel |
| author_facet | Junjie Liu Kevin Bowman Nicholas C Parazoo A Anthony Bloom Debra Wunch Zhe Jiang Kevin R Gurney Dave Schimel |
| author_sort | Junjie Liu |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | With projections of increasing drought in the future, understanding how the natural carbon cycle responds to drought events is needed to predict the fate of the land carbon sink and future atmospheric CO _2 concentrations and climate. We quantified the impacts of the 2011 and 2012 droughts on terrestrial ecosystem carbon uptake anomalies over the contiguous US (CONUS) relative to non-drought years during 2010–2015 using satellite observations and the carbon monitoring system—flux inversion modeling framework. Soil moisture and temperature anomalies are good predictors of gross primary production anomalies (R ^2 > 0.6) in summer but less so for net biosphere production (NBP) anomalies, reflecting different respiration responses. We showed that regional responses combine in complicated ways to produce the observed CONUS responses. Because of the compensating effect of the carbon flux anomalies between northern and southern CONUS in 2011 and between spring and summer in 2012, the annual NBP decreased by 0.10 ± 0.16 GtC in 2011, and increased by 0.10 ± 0.16 GtC in 2012 over CONUS, consistent with previous reported results. Over the 2011 and 2012 drought-impacted regions, the reductions in NBP were ∼40% of the regional annual fossil fuel emissions, underscoring the importance of quantifying natural carbon flux variability as part of an overall observing strategy. The NBP reductions over the 2011 and 2012 CONUS drought-impacted region were opposite to the global atmospheric CO _2 growth rate anomaly, implying that global atmospheric CO _2 growth rate is an offsetting effect between enhanced uptake and emission, and enhancing the understanding of regional carbon-cycle climate relationship is necessary to improve the projections of future climate. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T16:01:03Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-db748611e46e40cfb4cee0bc3fdd2dd6 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1748-9326 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T16:01:03Z |
| publishDate | 2018-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Environmental Research Letters |
| spelling | doaj.art-db748611e46e40cfb4cee0bc3fdd2dd62023-08-09T14:37:53ZengIOP PublishingEnvironmental Research Letters1748-93262018-01-0113909500310.1088/1748-9326/aad5efDetecting drought impact on terrestrial biosphere carbon fluxes over contiguous US with satellite observationsJunjie Liu0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7184-6594Kevin Bowman1Nicholas C Parazoo2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4424-7780A Anthony Bloom3Debra Wunch4Zhe Jiang5Kevin R Gurney6Dave Schimel7https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3473-8065Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology , United States of AmericaJet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology , United States of AmericaJet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology , United States of AmericaJet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology , United States of AmericaUniversity of Toronto , CanadaUniversity of Science and Technology of China , People’s Republic of ChinaArizona State University , United States of AmericaJet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology , United States of AmericaWith projections of increasing drought in the future, understanding how the natural carbon cycle responds to drought events is needed to predict the fate of the land carbon sink and future atmospheric CO _2 concentrations and climate. We quantified the impacts of the 2011 and 2012 droughts on terrestrial ecosystem carbon uptake anomalies over the contiguous US (CONUS) relative to non-drought years during 2010–2015 using satellite observations and the carbon monitoring system—flux inversion modeling framework. Soil moisture and temperature anomalies are good predictors of gross primary production anomalies (R ^2 > 0.6) in summer but less so for net biosphere production (NBP) anomalies, reflecting different respiration responses. We showed that regional responses combine in complicated ways to produce the observed CONUS responses. Because of the compensating effect of the carbon flux anomalies between northern and southern CONUS in 2011 and between spring and summer in 2012, the annual NBP decreased by 0.10 ± 0.16 GtC in 2011, and increased by 0.10 ± 0.16 GtC in 2012 over CONUS, consistent with previous reported results. Over the 2011 and 2012 drought-impacted regions, the reductions in NBP were ∼40% of the regional annual fossil fuel emissions, underscoring the importance of quantifying natural carbon flux variability as part of an overall observing strategy. The NBP reductions over the 2011 and 2012 CONUS drought-impacted region were opposite to the global atmospheric CO _2 growth rate anomaly, implying that global atmospheric CO _2 growth rate is an offsetting effect between enhanced uptake and emission, and enhancing the understanding of regional carbon-cycle climate relationship is necessary to improve the projections of future climate.https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aad5ef2011 and 2012 North American droughtterrestrial biosphere carbon responseGOSATcolumn CO2solar induced chlorophyll fluorescence |
| spellingShingle | Junjie Liu Kevin Bowman Nicholas C Parazoo A Anthony Bloom Debra Wunch Zhe Jiang Kevin R Gurney Dave Schimel Detecting drought impact on terrestrial biosphere carbon fluxes over contiguous US with satellite observations Environmental Research Letters 2011 and 2012 North American drought terrestrial biosphere carbon response GOSAT column CO2 solar induced chlorophyll fluorescence |
| title | Detecting drought impact on terrestrial biosphere carbon fluxes over contiguous US with satellite observations |
| title_full | Detecting drought impact on terrestrial biosphere carbon fluxes over contiguous US with satellite observations |
| title_fullStr | Detecting drought impact on terrestrial biosphere carbon fluxes over contiguous US with satellite observations |
| title_full_unstemmed | Detecting drought impact on terrestrial biosphere carbon fluxes over contiguous US with satellite observations |
| title_short | Detecting drought impact on terrestrial biosphere carbon fluxes over contiguous US with satellite observations |
| title_sort | detecting drought impact on terrestrial biosphere carbon fluxes over contiguous us with satellite observations |
| topic | 2011 and 2012 North American drought terrestrial biosphere carbon response GOSAT column CO2 solar induced chlorophyll fluorescence |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aad5ef |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT junjieliu detectingdroughtimpactonterrestrialbiospherecarbonfluxesovercontiguoususwithsatelliteobservations AT kevinbowman detectingdroughtimpactonterrestrialbiospherecarbonfluxesovercontiguoususwithsatelliteobservations AT nicholascparazoo detectingdroughtimpactonterrestrialbiospherecarbonfluxesovercontiguoususwithsatelliteobservations AT aanthonybloom detectingdroughtimpactonterrestrialbiospherecarbonfluxesovercontiguoususwithsatelliteobservations AT debrawunch detectingdroughtimpactonterrestrialbiospherecarbonfluxesovercontiguoususwithsatelliteobservations AT zhejiang detectingdroughtimpactonterrestrialbiospherecarbonfluxesovercontiguoususwithsatelliteobservations AT kevinrgurney detectingdroughtimpactonterrestrialbiospherecarbonfluxesovercontiguoususwithsatelliteobservations AT daveschimel detectingdroughtimpactonterrestrialbiospherecarbonfluxesovercontiguoususwithsatelliteobservations |