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Fernández-Martínez M, Peñuelas J, Chevallier F, Ciais P, Obersteiner M, Rödenbeck C, Sardans J, Vicca S, Yang H, Sitch S, Friedlingstein P, Arora VK, Goll DS, Jain AK, Lombardozzi DL, McGuire PC, Janssens IA. Diagnosing destabilization risk in global land carbon sinks. Nature 2023; 615:848-853. [PMID: 36813960 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05725-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/11/2021] [Accepted: 01/11/2023] [Indexed: 02/24/2023]
Abstract
Global net land carbon uptake or net biome production (NBP) has increased during recent decades1. Whether its temporal variability and autocorrelation have changed during this period, however, remains elusive, even though an increase in both could indicate an increased potential for a destabilized carbon sink2,3. Here, we investigate the trends and controls of net terrestrial carbon uptake and its temporal variability and autocorrelation from 1981 to 2018 using two atmospheric-inversion models, the amplitude of the seasonal cycle of atmospheric CO2 concentration derived from nine monitoring stations distributed across the Pacific Ocean and dynamic global vegetation models. We find that annual NBP and its interdecadal variability increased globally whereas temporal autocorrelation decreased. We observe a separation of regions characterized by increasingly variable NBP, associated with warm regions and increasingly variable temperatures, lower and weaker positive trends in NBP and regions where NBP became stronger and less variable. Plant species richness presented a concave-down parabolic spatial relationship with NBP and its variability at the global scale whereas nitrogen deposition generally increased NBP. Increasing temperature and its increasing variability appear as the most important drivers of declining and increasingly variable NBP. Our results show increasing variability of NBP regionally that can be mostly attributed to climate change and that may point to destabilization of the coupled carbon-climate system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marcos Fernández-Martínez
- PLECO (Plants and Ecosystems), Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, Belgium.
- CREAF, Campus de Bellaterra (UAB), Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain.
- BEECA-UB, Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
| | - Josep Peñuelas
- CREAF, Campus de Bellaterra (UAB), Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain
- CSIC, Global Ecology Unit, CREAF-CSIC-UAB, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Frederic Chevallier
- Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, LSCE/IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Philippe Ciais
- Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, LSCE/IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Michael Obersteiner
- International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria
- School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Christian Rödenbeck
- Department of Biogeochmical Systems, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany
| | - Jordi Sardans
- CREAF, Campus de Bellaterra (UAB), Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain
- CSIC, Global Ecology Unit, CREAF-CSIC-UAB, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Sara Vicca
- PLECO (Plants and Ecosystems), Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, Belgium
| | - Hui Yang
- Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, LSCE/IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Stephen Sitch
- College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | - Pierre Friedlingstein
- College of Engineering, Mathematics, and Physical Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | - Vivek K Arora
- Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Climate Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Victoria, BC, Canada
| | - Daniel S Goll
- Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, LSCE/IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Atul K Jain
- Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA
| | - Danica L Lombardozzi
- Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA
| | - Patrick C McGuire
- Department of Meteorology, Department of Geography & Environmental Science, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Reading, Reading, UK
| | - Ivan A Janssens
- PLECO (Plants and Ecosystems), Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, Belgium
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Jin Y, Keeling RF, Rödenbeck C, Patra PK, Piper SC, Schwartzman A. Impact of Changing Winds on the Mauna Loa CO 2 Seasonal Cycle in Relation to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH. ATMOSPHERES : JGR 2022; 127:e2021JD035892. [PMID: 35864859 PMCID: PMC9285976 DOI: 10.1029/2021jd035892] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/22/2021] [Revised: 04/21/2022] [Accepted: 06/16/2022] [Indexed: 05/14/2023]
Abstract
Long-term measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory (MLO) show that the CO2 seasonal cycle amplitude (SCA) increased from 1959 to 2019 at an overall rate of 0.22 ± 0.034 ppm decade-1 while also varying on interannual to decadal time scales. These SCA changes are a signature of changes in land ecological CO2 fluxes as well as shifting winds. Simulations with the TM3 tracer transport model and CO2 fluxes from the Jena CarboScope CO2 Inversion suggest that shifting winds alone have contributed to a decrease in SCA of -0.10 ± 0.022 ppm decade-1 from 1959 to 2019, partly offsetting the observed long-term SCA increase associated with enhanced ecosystem net primary production. According to these simulations and MIROC-ACTM simulations, the shorter-term variability of MLO SCA is nearly equally driven by varying ecological CO2 fluxes (49%) and varying winds (51%). We also show that the MLO SCA is strongly correlated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) due to varying winds, as well as with a closely related wind index (U-PDO). Since 1980, 44% of the wind-driven SCA decrease has been tied to a secular trend in the U-PDO, which is associated with a progressive weakening of westerly winds at 700 mbar over the central Pacific from 20°N to 40°N. Similar impacts of varying winds on the SCA are seen in simulations at other low-latitude Pacific stations, illustrating the difficulty of constraining trend and variability of land CO2 fluxes using observations from low latitudes due to the complexity of circulation changes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuming Jin
- Scripps Institution of OceanographyUniversity of California, San DiegoLa JollaCAUSA
| | - Ralph F. Keeling
- Scripps Institution of OceanographyUniversity of California, San DiegoLa JollaCAUSA
| | | | - Prabir K. Patra
- Research Institute for Global ChangeJapan Agency for Marine‐Earth Science and TechnologyYokohamaJapan
| | - Stephen C. Piper
- Scripps Institution of OceanographyUniversity of California, San DiegoLa JollaCAUSA
| | - Armin Schwartzman
- Division of BiostatisticsHalıcıoğlu Data Science InstituteUniversity of California, San DiegoLa JollaCAUSA
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Wang K, Wang X, Piao S, Chevallier F, Mao J, Shi X, Huntingford C, Bastos A, Ciais P, Xu H, Keeling RF, Pacala SW, Chen A. Unusual characteristics of the carbon cycle during the 2015-2016 El Niño. GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY 2021; 27:3798-3809. [PMID: 33934460 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15669] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/07/2021] [Accepted: 03/27/2021] [Indexed: 06/12/2023]
Abstract
The 2015-2016 El Niño was one of the strongest on record, but its influence on the carbon balance is less clear. Using Northern Hemisphere atmospheric CO2 observations, we found both detrended atmospheric CO2 growth rate (CGR) and CO2 seasonal-cycle amplitude (SCA) of 2015-2016 were much higher than that of other El Niño events. The simultaneous high CGR and SCA were unusual, because our analysis of long-term CO2 observations at Mauna Loa revealed a significantly negative correlation between CGR and SCA. Atmospheric inversions and terrestrial ecosystem models indicate strong northern land carbon uptake during spring but substantially reduced carbon uptake (or high emissions) during early autumn, which amplified SCA but also resulted in a small anomaly in annual carbon uptake of northern ecosystems in 2015-2016. This negative ecosystem carbon uptake anomaly in early autumn was primarily due to soil water deficits and more litter decomposition caused by enhanced spring productivity. Our study demonstrates a decoupling between seasonality and annual carbon cycle balance in northern ecosystems over 2015-2016, which is unprecedented in the past five decades of El Niño events.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kai Wang
- Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Xuhui Wang
- Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Shilong Piao
- Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
- Key Laboratory of Alpine Ecology and Biodiversity, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Center for Excellence in Tibetan Earth Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Frédéric Chevallier
- Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, CEA CNRS UVSQ, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Jiafu Mao
- Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA
| | - Xiaoying Shi
- Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA
| | | | - Ana Bastos
- Department Biogeochemical Integration, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany
| | - Philippe Ciais
- Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, CEA CNRS UVSQ, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Hao Xu
- Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Ralph F Keeling
- Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Stephen W Pacala
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Anping Chen
- Department of Biology and Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
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Abstract
We analyzed real-time measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), with total electricity production and nationwide restrictions phases in China, the United States of America, Europe, and India due to the novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on atmospheric CO2. A decline of 3.7% in the global energy demand at about 150 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) in the first quarter (Q1) of 2020 was recorded compared to Q1 2019 due to the cutback on international economic activities. Our results showed that: (1) electricity production for the same period in 2018, 2019, and 2020 shrunk at an offset of 9.20%, which resulted in a modest reduction (−1.79%) of atmospheric CO2 to the 2017–2018 CO2 level; (2) a non-seasonal, abrupt, and brief atmospheric CO2 decrease by 0.85% in mid-February 2020 could be due to Phase 1 restrictions in China. The results indicate that electricity production reduction is significant to the short-term variability of atmospheric CO2. It also highlights China’s significant contribution to atmospheric CO2, which suggests that, without the national restriction of activities, CO2 concentration is set to exceed 2019 by 1.79%. Due to the lockdown, it quickly decreased and sustained for two months. The results underscore atmospheric CO2 reductions on the monthly time scale that can be achieved if electricity production from combustible sources was slashed. The result could be useful for cost-benefit analyses on the decrease in electricity production of combustible sources and the impact of this reduction on atmospheric CO2.
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