Alaskan carbon-climate feedbacks will be weaker than inferred from short-term experiments
Climate warming is occurring fastest at high latitudes. Based on short-term field experiments, this warming is projected to stimulate soil organic matter decomposition, and promote a positive feedback to climate change. We show here that the tightly coupled, nonlinear nature of high-latitude ecosyst...
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ftosti:oai:osti.gov:1763682 2023-07-30T04:01:45+02:00 Alaskan carbon-climate feedbacks will be weaker than inferred from short-term experiments Bouskill, Nicholas J. Riley, William J. Zhu, Qing Mekonnen, Zelalem A. Grant, Robert F. 2021-02-12 application/pdf http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1763682 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1763682 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19574-3 unknown http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1763682 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1763682 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19574-3 doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19574-3 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES 2021 ftosti https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19574-3 2023-07-11T10:01:06Z Climate warming is occurring fastest at high latitudes. Based on short-term field experiments, this warming is projected to stimulate soil organic matter decomposition, and promote a positive feedback to climate change. We show here that the tightly coupled, nonlinear nature of high-latitude ecosystems implies that short-term (<10 year) warming experiments produce emergent ecosystem carbon stock temperature sensitivities inconsistent with emergent multi-decadal responses. We first demonstrate that a well-tested mechanistic ecosystem model accurately represents observed carbon cycle and active layer depth responses to short-term summer warming in four diverse Alaskan sites. We then show that short-term warming manipulations do not capture the non-linear, long-term dynamics of vegetation, and thereby soil organic matter, that occur in response to thermal, hydrological, and nutrient transformations belowground. Our results demonstrate significant spatial heterogeneity in multi-decadal Arctic carbon cycle trajectories and argue for more mechanistic models to improve predictive capabilities. Other/Unknown Material Arctic Climate change SciTec Connect (Office of Scientific and Technical Information - OSTI, U.S. Department of Energy) Arctic Nature Communications 11 1 |
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Open Polar |
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SciTec Connect (Office of Scientific and Technical Information - OSTI, U.S. Department of Energy) |
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language |
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54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES |
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54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES Bouskill, Nicholas J. Riley, William J. Zhu, Qing Mekonnen, Zelalem A. Grant, Robert F. Alaskan carbon-climate feedbacks will be weaker than inferred from short-term experiments |
topic_facet |
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES |
description |
Climate warming is occurring fastest at high latitudes. Based on short-term field experiments, this warming is projected to stimulate soil organic matter decomposition, and promote a positive feedback to climate change. We show here that the tightly coupled, nonlinear nature of high-latitude ecosystems implies that short-term (<10 year) warming experiments produce emergent ecosystem carbon stock temperature sensitivities inconsistent with emergent multi-decadal responses. We first demonstrate that a well-tested mechanistic ecosystem model accurately represents observed carbon cycle and active layer depth responses to short-term summer warming in four diverse Alaskan sites. We then show that short-term warming manipulations do not capture the non-linear, long-term dynamics of vegetation, and thereby soil organic matter, that occur in response to thermal, hydrological, and nutrient transformations belowground. Our results demonstrate significant spatial heterogeneity in multi-decadal Arctic carbon cycle trajectories and argue for more mechanistic models to improve predictive capabilities. |
author |
Bouskill, Nicholas J. Riley, William J. Zhu, Qing Mekonnen, Zelalem A. Grant, Robert F. |
author_facet |
Bouskill, Nicholas J. Riley, William J. Zhu, Qing Mekonnen, Zelalem A. Grant, Robert F. |
author_sort |
Bouskill, Nicholas J. |
title |
Alaskan carbon-climate feedbacks will be weaker than inferred from short-term experiments |
title_short |
Alaskan carbon-climate feedbacks will be weaker than inferred from short-term experiments |
title_full |
Alaskan carbon-climate feedbacks will be weaker than inferred from short-term experiments |
title_fullStr |
Alaskan carbon-climate feedbacks will be weaker than inferred from short-term experiments |
title_full_unstemmed |
Alaskan carbon-climate feedbacks will be weaker than inferred from short-term experiments |
title_sort |
alaskan carbon-climate feedbacks will be weaker than inferred from short-term experiments |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1763682 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1763682 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19574-3 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Climate change |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change |
op_relation |
http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1763682 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1763682 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19574-3 doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19574-3 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19574-3 |
container_title |
Nature Communications |
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11 |
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1 |
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1772812505207275520 |