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Title: Land carbon models underestimate the severity and duration of drought’s impact on plant productivity

Abstract

The ability to precisely predict ecosystem drought response and recovery is necessary to produce reliable forecasts of land carbon uptake and future climate. Using a suite of models from the Multi-scale Synthesis and Terrestrial Model Intercomparison Project (MsTMIP), we assessed modeled net primary productivity (NPP) response to, and recovery from, drought events against a benchmark derived from tree ring observations between 1948 and 2008 across forested regions of the US and Europe. We find short lag times (0–6 months) between climate anomalies and modeled NPP response. Even though models accurately simulate the direction of drought legacy effects (i.e. NPP decreases), projected effects are approximately four times shorter and four times weaker than observations suggest. This discrepancy between observed and simulated vegetation recovery from drought reveals a potential critical model deficiency. Since productivity is a crucial component of the land carbon balance, models that underestimate drought recovery time could overestimate predictions of future land carbon sink strength and, consequently, underestimate forecasts of atmospheric CO2.

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [3]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [4];  [5]; ORCiD logo [6]; ORCiD logo [7]; ORCiD logo [6];  [3]; ORCiD logo [6]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States)
  2. Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, MA (United States)
  3. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Jet Propulsion Lab.
  4. Carnegie Inst. of Science, Stanford, CA (United States)
  5. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
  6. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  7. Biospheric Sciences Lab., Greenbelt, MD (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); NASA ROSES
OSTI Identifier:
1503992
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC05-00OR22725; NNX10AG01A; NNX14A154G; NNH10AN681
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Scientific Reports
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 9; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2045-2322
Publisher:
Nature Publishing Group
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; carbon cycle; forest ecology

Citation Formats

Kolus, Hannah R., Huntzinger, Deborah N., Schwalm, Christopher R., Fisher, Joshua B., McKay, Nicholas, Fang, Yuanyuan, Michalak, Anna M., Schaefer, Kevin, Wei, Yaxing, Poulter, Benjamin, Mao, Jiafu, Parazoo, Nicholas C., and Shi, Xiaoying. Land carbon models underestimate the severity and duration of drought’s impact on plant productivity. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1038/s41598-019-39373-1.
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Kolus, Hannah R., Huntzinger, Deborah N., Schwalm, Christopher R., Fisher, Joshua B., McKay, Nicholas, Fang, Yuanyuan, Michalak, Anna M., Schaefer, Kevin, Wei, Yaxing, Poulter, Benjamin, Mao, Jiafu, Parazoo, Nicholas C., & Shi, Xiaoying. Land carbon models underestimate the severity and duration of drought’s impact on plant productivity. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-39373-1
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Kolus, Hannah R., Huntzinger, Deborah N., Schwalm, Christopher R., Fisher, Joshua B., McKay, Nicholas, Fang, Yuanyuan, Michalak, Anna M., Schaefer, Kevin, Wei, Yaxing, Poulter, Benjamin, Mao, Jiafu, Parazoo, Nicholas C., and Shi, Xiaoying. Tue . "Land carbon models underestimate the severity and duration of drought’s impact on plant productivity". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-39373-1. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1503992.
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@article{osti_1503992,
title = {Land carbon models underestimate the severity and duration of drought’s impact on plant productivity},
author = {Kolus, Hannah R. and Huntzinger, Deborah N. and Schwalm, Christopher R. and Fisher, Joshua B. and McKay, Nicholas and Fang, Yuanyuan and Michalak, Anna M. and Schaefer, Kevin and Wei, Yaxing and Poulter, Benjamin and Mao, Jiafu and Parazoo, Nicholas C. and Shi, Xiaoying},
abstractNote = {The ability to precisely predict ecosystem drought response and recovery is necessary to produce reliable forecasts of land carbon uptake and future climate. Using a suite of models from the Multi-scale Synthesis and Terrestrial Model Intercomparison Project (MsTMIP), we assessed modeled net primary productivity (NPP) response to, and recovery from, drought events against a benchmark derived from tree ring observations between 1948 and 2008 across forested regions of the US and Europe. We find short lag times (0–6 months) between climate anomalies and modeled NPP response. Even though models accurately simulate the direction of drought legacy effects (i.e. NPP decreases), projected effects are approximately four times shorter and four times weaker than observations suggest. This discrepancy between observed and simulated vegetation recovery from drought reveals a potential critical model deficiency. Since productivity is a crucial component of the land carbon balance, models that underestimate drought recovery time could overestimate predictions of future land carbon sink strength and, consequently, underestimate forecasts of atmospheric CO2.},
doi = {10.1038/s41598-019-39373-1},
journal = {Scientific Reports},
number = 1,
volume = 9,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Feb 26 00:00:00 EST 2019},
month = {Tue Feb 26 00:00:00 EST 2019}
}
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Journal Article:
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Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-39373-1
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Cited by: 37 works
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Figures / Tables:

Figure 1 Figure 1: Schematic depicting how severe drought can impact NPP. Starting on the lef, with time progressing to the right, this example ecosystem begins at typical vegetation growth rates (the height of the green surface). Drought (the orange shaded period) can decrease productivity even afer the return to nominal climatemore » conditions. Drought response is the initial depression in growth following the onset of a drought, indicated here as the depth of the trough in NPP. Lag time is the time between the onset of drought and the drought response. Recovery describes the amount of time required to recover normal growth rates. Drought legacy efects correspond to the magnitude of NPP depression during drought recovery. Te cut-out wedge illustrates the total loss of NPP, relative to typical productivity - during the drought event itself and through the end of drought recovery. Alternatively, vegetation may be unable to recover from drought and, instead, follow the path to mortality. Note that the relative magnitudes of these variables (e.g. larger cumulative loss of productivity during drought recovery than the drought response) depend on factors such as the drought’s characteristics and the type of vegetation; this illustration provides an example of drought’s impact on productivity rather than the rule. Illustration by Victor O. Leshyk. Printed with permission by Victor O. Leshyk under a CC BY open access license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).« less
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    Works referencing / citing this record:

    Recent increases in drought frequency cause observed multi-year drought legacies in the tree rings of semi-arid forests
    journal, November 2019

    Integrating Species‐Specific Information in Models Improves Regional Projections Under Climate Change
    journal, June 2019

    • Remy, Cécile C.; Krofcheck, Dan J.; Keyser, Alisa R.
    • Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 46, Issue 12
    • DOI: 10.1029/2019gl082762

    Revisiting assessments of ecosystem drought recovery
    journal, November 2019

    • Liu, Laibao; Gudmundsson, Lukas; Hauser, Mathias
    • Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 14, Issue 11
    • DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab4c61

    Global divergent responses of primary productivity to water, energy, and CO 2
    journal, December 2019

    • Liu, Zhiyong; Chen, Lei; Smith, Nicholas G.
    • Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 14, Issue 12
    • DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab57c5

    Linking drought legacy effects across scales: From leaves to tree rings to ecosystems
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    • Kannenberg, Steven A.; Novick, Kimberly A.; Alexander, M. Ross
    • Global Change Biology, Vol. 25, Issue 9
    • DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14710

    Legacies of more frequent drought in ponderosa pine across the western United States
    journal, July 2019

    • Peltier, Drew M. P.; Ogle, Kiona
    • Global Change Biology, Vol. 25, Issue 11
    • DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14720

    Revisiting assessments of ecosystem drought recovery
    text, January 2019

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