Plant Physiological Responses to Rising CO2 Modify Simulated Daily Runoff Intensity With Implications for Globa-Scale Flood Risk Assessment
Abstract
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.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[2];
[3];
[4];
[2];
[6];
[2]
- 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)
- 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)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1490571
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1483007
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-00OR22725; DE‐SC0012152
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 45; Journal Issue: 22; Journal ID: ISSN 0094-8276
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 58 GEOSCIENCES
Citation Formats
Kooperman, Gabriel J., Fowler, Megan D., Hoffman, Forrest M., Koven, Charles D., Lindsay, Keith, Pritchard, Michael S., Swann, Abigail L. S., and Randerson, James T. Plant Physiological Responses to Rising CO2 Modify Simulated Daily Runoff Intensity With Implications for Globa-Scale Flood Risk Assessment. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.1029/2018GL079901.
Kooperman, Gabriel J., Fowler, Megan D., Hoffman, Forrest M., Koven, Charles D., Lindsay, Keith, Pritchard, Michael S., Swann, Abigail L. S., & Randerson, James T. Plant Physiological Responses to Rising CO2 Modify Simulated Daily Runoff Intensity With Implications for Globa-Scale Flood Risk Assessment. United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL079901
Kooperman, Gabriel J., Fowler, Megan D., Hoffman, Forrest M., Koven, Charles D., Lindsay, Keith, Pritchard, Michael S., Swann, Abigail L. S., and Randerson, James T. Tue .
"Plant Physiological Responses to Rising CO2 Modify Simulated Daily Runoff Intensity With Implications for Globa-Scale Flood Risk Assessment". United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL079901. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1490571.
@article{osti_1490571,
title = {Plant Physiological Responses to Rising CO2 Modify Simulated Daily Runoff Intensity With Implications for Globa-Scale Flood Risk Assessment},
author = {Kooperman, Gabriel J. and Fowler, Megan D. and Hoffman, Forrest M. and Koven, Charles D. and Lindsay, Keith and Pritchard, Michael S. and Swann, Abigail L. S. and Randerson, James T.},
abstractNote = {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.},
doi = {10.1029/2018GL079901},
journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
number = 22,
volume = 45,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Nov 20 00:00:00 EST 2018},
month = {Tue Nov 20 00:00:00 EST 2018}
}
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