Vegetation Response to Rising CO2 Amplifies Contrasts in Water Resources Between Global Wet and Dry Land Areas
Abstract
Rising atmospheric CO2 impacts on vegetation physiological processes can alter land feedbacks on precipitation and water resources, but understanding of regional differences in these changes is uncertain. We investigate the impact of rising CO2 on land water resources for different wetness levels using four Earth system models. We find an overall tendency of runoff to increase across all wetness levels. However, runoff increases in wet regions are much larger than those in dry regions, especially in wet seasons. This substantial amplification of contrasts between wet and dry regions increases at 3% per 100 ppm increase in CO2 relative to the historical period, reaching 18% for a quadrupling of CO2, quantified by a new wetting contrast index (WCI). Physiological effects suppress evapotranspiration more in wet than dry regions, which has a larger contribution than radiative forcing to the amplification of runoff contrast, reshaping the spatial distribution of future land water resources.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[1];
[2];
[3];
[4]
- Peking University, Beijing (China)
- Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford (United Kingdom)
- University of Georgia, Athens, GA (United States)
- Peking University, Beijing (China); Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Univ. of Georgia, Athens, GA (United States); Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); Met Office Climate Science for Service Partnership China (CSSP China)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1853313
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0019459; SC0021209; 41988101
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 48; Journal Issue: 14; Journal ID: ISSN 0094-8276
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 58 GEOSCIENCES
Citation Formats
Cui, Jiangpeng, Yang, Hui, Huntingford, Chris, Kooperman, Gabriel J., Lian, Xu, He, Mingzhu, and Piao, Shilong. Vegetation Response to Rising CO2 Amplifies Contrasts in Water Resources Between Global Wet and Dry Land Areas. United States: N. p., 2021.
Web. doi:10.1029/2021gl094293.
Cui, Jiangpeng, Yang, Hui, Huntingford, Chris, Kooperman, Gabriel J., Lian, Xu, He, Mingzhu, & Piao, Shilong. Vegetation Response to Rising CO2 Amplifies Contrasts in Water Resources Between Global Wet and Dry Land Areas. United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021gl094293
Cui, Jiangpeng, Yang, Hui, Huntingford, Chris, Kooperman, Gabriel J., Lian, Xu, He, Mingzhu, and Piao, Shilong. Sat .
"Vegetation Response to Rising CO2 Amplifies Contrasts in Water Resources Between Global Wet and Dry Land Areas". United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021gl094293. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1853313.
@article{osti_1853313,
title = {Vegetation Response to Rising CO2 Amplifies Contrasts in Water Resources Between Global Wet and Dry Land Areas},
author = {Cui, Jiangpeng and Yang, Hui and Huntingford, Chris and Kooperman, Gabriel J. and Lian, Xu and He, Mingzhu and Piao, Shilong},
abstractNote = {Rising atmospheric CO2 impacts on vegetation physiological processes can alter land feedbacks on precipitation and water resources, but understanding of regional differences in these changes is uncertain. We investigate the impact of rising CO2 on land water resources for different wetness levels using four Earth system models. We find an overall tendency of runoff to increase across all wetness levels. However, runoff increases in wet regions are much larger than those in dry regions, especially in wet seasons. This substantial amplification of contrasts between wet and dry regions increases at 3% per 100 ppm increase in CO2 relative to the historical period, reaching 18% for a quadrupling of CO2, quantified by a new wetting contrast index (WCI). Physiological effects suppress evapotranspiration more in wet than dry regions, which has a larger contribution than radiative forcing to the amplification of runoff contrast, reshaping the spatial distribution of future land water resources.},
doi = {10.1029/2021gl094293},
journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
number = 14,
volume = 48,
place = {United States},
year = {Sat Jul 03 00:00:00 EDT 2021},
month = {Sat Jul 03 00:00:00 EDT 2021}
}
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