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.

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19574-3

Title: Alaskan carbon-climate feedbacks will be weaker than inferred from short-term experiments

Journal Article · Mon Nov 16 00:00:00 EST 2020 · Nature Communications

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19574-3· OSTI ID:1763682

^[1];

^[2]

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Univ. of Alberta, Edmonton, AB (Canada)

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.

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Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231

OSTI ID:: 1763682

Journal Information:: Nature Communications, Vol. 11, Issue 1; ISSN 2041-1723

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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