Plant Physiological Responses to Rising CO2 Modify Simulated Daily Runoff Intensity With Implications for Globa-Scale Flood Risk Assessment

Kooperman, Gabriel J.; Fowler, Megan D.; Hoffman, Forrest M.; Koven, Charles D.; Lindsay, Keith; Pritchard, Michael S.; Swann, Abigail L.  S.; Randerson, James T.

doi:10.1029/2018GL079901

Title: Plant Physiological Responses to Rising CO₂ Modify Simulated Daily Runoff Intensity With Implications for Globa-Scale Flood Risk Assessment

Journal Article · Tue Nov 20 00:00:00 EST 2018 · Geophysical Research Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL079901· OSTI ID:1490571

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Univ. of Georgia, Athens, GA (United States)
Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States)
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)

Abstract Climate change is expected to increase the frequency of flooding events and, thus, the risks of flood‐related mortality and infrastructure damage. Global‐scale assessments of future flooding from Earth system models based only on precipitation changes neglect important processes that occur within the land surface, particularly plant physiological responses to rising CO ₂ . Higher CO ₂ can reduce stomatal conductance and transpiration, which may lead to increased soil moisture and runoff in some regions, promoting flooding even without changes in precipitation. Here we assess the relative impacts of plant physiological and radiative greenhouse effects on changes in daily runoff intensity over tropical continents using the Community Earth System Model. We find that extreme percentile rates increase significantly more than mean runoff in response to higher CO ₂ . Plant physiological effects have a small impact on precipitation intensity but are a dominant driver of runoff intensification, contributing to one half of the 99th and one third of the 99.9th percentile runoff intensity changes.

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Research Organization:: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

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

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725; DE‐SC0012152

OSTI ID:: 1490571

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1483007

Journal Information:: Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 45, Issue 22; ISSN 0094-8276

Publisher:: American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 20 works

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Multimodel Analysis of Future Land Use and Climate Change Impacts on Ecosystem Functioning Krause, A.; Haverd, V.; Poulter, B. Earth's Future, Vol. 7, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1029/2018ef001123	journal	July 2019
The effect of plant physiological responses to rising CO2 on global streamflow Fowler, Megan D.; Kooperman, Gabriel J.; Randerson, James T. Nature Climate Change, Vol. 9, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0602-x	journal	October 2019
Multimodel Analysis of Future Land Use and Climate Change Impacts on Ecosystem Functioning Krause, A.; Haverd, V.; Poulter, B. Karlsruhe https://doi.org/10.5445/ir/1000098197	text	January 2019
Multimodel Analysis of Future Land Use and Climate Change Impacts on Ecosystem Functioning Krause, A.; Haverd, V.; Poulter, B. FID GEO https://doi.org/10.23689/fidgeo-4875	text	January 2019

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