Soil Moisture Variability Intensifies and Prolongs Eastern Amazon Temperature and Carbon Cycle Response to El Niño–Southern Oscillation

Levine, Paul A.; Randerson, James T.; Chen, Yang; Pritchard, Michael S.; Xu, Min; Hoffman, Forrest M.

doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0150.1

Title: Soil Moisture Variability Intensifies and Prolongs Eastern Amazon Temperature and Carbon Cycle Response to El Niño–Southern Oscillation

Abstract

El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is an important driver of climate and carbon cycle variability in the Amazon. Sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the equatorial Pacific drive teleconnections with temperature directly through changes in atmospheric circulation. These circulation changes also impact precipitation and, consequently, soil moisture, enabling additional indirect effects on temperature through land–atmosphere coupling. To separate the direct influence of ENSO SST anomalies from the indirect effects of soil moisture, a mechanism-denial experiment was performed to decouple their variability in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) forced with observed SSTs from 1982 to 2016. Soil moisture variability was found to amplify and extend the effects of SST forcing on eastern Amazon temperature and carbon fluxes in E3SM. During the wet season, the direct, circulation-driven effect of ENSO SST anomalies dominated temperature and carbon cycle variability throughout the Amazon. During the following dry season, after ENSO SST anomalies had dissipated, soil moisture variability became the dominant driver in the east, explaining 67%–82% of the temperature difference between El Niño and La Niña years, and 85%–91% of the difference in carbon fluxes. These results highlight the need to consider the interdependence between temperature and hydrology when attributing the relative contributionsmore »« less

Authors:

Levine, Paul A. ^[1]; Randerson, James T. ^[1]; Chen, Yang ^[1]; Pritchard, Michael S. ^[1]; Xu, Min ^[2]; Hoffman, Forrest M. ^[2]

Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California
Climate Change Science Institute and Computational Earth Sciences Group, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Publication Date:: Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 EST 2019

Research Org.:: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF)

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

OSTI Identifier:: 1492761

Alternate Identifier(s):: OSTI ID: 1495949

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0012152; AC02-05CH11231; AC05-00OR22725; SC0006791

Resource Type:: Published Article

Journal Name:: Journal of Climate

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Name: Journal of Climate Journal Volume: 32 Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 0894-8755

Publisher:: American Meteorological Society

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Subject:: 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Amazon region; Atmosphere-land interaction; ENSO; Soil moisture; Land surface model; Interannual variability

Citation Formats


                    Levine, Paul A., Randerson, James T., Chen, Yang, Pritchard, Michael S., Xu, Min, and Hoffman, Forrest M. Soil Moisture Variability Intensifies and Prolongs Eastern Amazon Temperature and Carbon Cycle Response to El Niño–Southern Oscillation.  United States: N. p., 2019. 
Web.  doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0150.1.

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                    Levine, Paul A., Randerson, James T., Chen, Yang, Pritchard, Michael S., Xu, Min, & Hoffman, Forrest M. Soil Moisture Variability Intensifies and Prolongs Eastern Amazon Temperature and Carbon Cycle Response to El Niño–Southern Oscillation.  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0150.1

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                    Levine, Paul A., Randerson, James T., Chen, Yang, Pritchard, Michael S., Xu, Min, and Hoffman, Forrest M. Fri .  
"Soil Moisture Variability Intensifies and Prolongs Eastern Amazon Temperature and Carbon Cycle Response to El Niño–Southern Oscillation".  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0150.1.

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@article{osti_1492761,

  title        = {Soil Moisture Variability Intensifies and Prolongs Eastern Amazon Temperature and Carbon Cycle Response to El Niño–Southern Oscillation},

  author       = {Levine, Paul A. and Randerson, James T. and Chen, Yang and Pritchard, Michael S. and Xu, Min and Hoffman, Forrest M.},

  abstractNote = {El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is an important driver of climate and carbon cycle variability in the Amazon. Sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the equatorial Pacific drive teleconnections with temperature directly through changes in atmospheric circulation. These circulation changes also impact precipitation and, consequently, soil moisture, enabling additional indirect effects on temperature through land–atmosphere coupling. To separate the direct influence of ENSO SST anomalies from the indirect effects of soil moisture, a mechanism-denial experiment was performed to decouple their variability in the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) forced with observed SSTs from 1982 to 2016. Soil moisture variability was found to amplify and extend the effects of SST forcing on eastern Amazon temperature and carbon fluxes in E3SM. During the wet season, the direct, circulation-driven effect of ENSO SST anomalies dominated temperature and carbon cycle variability throughout the Amazon. During the following dry season, after ENSO SST anomalies had dissipated, soil moisture variability became the dominant driver in the east, explaining 67%–82% of the temperature difference between El Niño and La Niña years, and 85%–91% of the difference in carbon fluxes. These results highlight the need to consider the interdependence between temperature and hydrology when attributing the relative contributions of these factors to interannual variability in the terrestrial carbon cycle. Specifically, when offline models are forced with observations or reanalysis, the contribution of temperature may be overestimated when its own variability is modulated by hydrology via land–atmosphere coupling.},

  doi          = {10.1175/JCLI-D-18-0150.1},

  journal      = {Journal of Climate},

  number       = 4,

  volume       = 32,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 EST 2019},

  month        = {Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 EST 2019}

}

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Title: Soil Moisture Variability Intensifies and Prolongs Eastern Amazon Temperature and Carbon Cycle Response to El Niño–Southern Oscillation

Abstract

Citation Formats

Proposing the solar‐wind energy flux hypothesis as a driver of inter‐annual variation in tropical tree reproductive effort journal, October 2019

Proposing the solar‐wind energy flux hypothesis as a driver of inter‐annual variation in tropical tree reproductive effort
journal, October 2019