Widespread shift from ecosystem energy to water limitation with climate change

Denissen, Jasper; Teuling, Adriaan J.; Pitman, A. J.; Koirala, Sujan; Migliavacca, Mirco; Li, Wan–Tong; Reichstein, Markus; Winkler, Alexander J.; Zhan, Chunhui; Orth, René

doi:10.1038/s41558-022-01403-8

Cited by 142 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 82 publications

(121 reference statements)

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“…In energy‐limited regions, ELI <0, (typically, cor(SM,Tr) is either close to zero or negative, and cor( R n /Tem,Tr) > 0). In such regions, soil moisture is abundant and its variability will not directly affect vegetation growth and thus transpiration (Denissen et al., 2022). Therefore, changes in the degree of ecosystem water/energy limitation can be evaluated by analyzing changes in ELI.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The purpose of this index is to distinguish the water-and energy-limited regimes of ecosystems (Berg & McColl, 2021). Following Denissen et al (2022), positive ELI values denote the water-limited conditions and negative values indicate energy-limited conditions. In water-limited regions, ELI > 0, (typically, cor(SM,Tr) > 0, and cor (R n /Tem,Tr) is either close to zero or negative).…”

Section: Ecosystem Limitation Indexmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Widespread Increasing Ecosystem Water Limitation During the Past Three Decades in the Yellow River Basin, China

Zhao

Wang

et al. 2023

JGR Biogeosciences

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Terrestrial ecosystems are essential for the provision of services for living organisms and CO 2 uptake. Changes in the state and functions of ecosystems can substantially impact human economic development (Denissen et al., 2022). Vegetation is key to the exchange of water, energy, and carbon between the land surface and atmosphere, transpiration through plant stomata plays an important role in terrestrial ecosystems (Gentine et al., 2019;Humphrey et al., 2021). Changes in vegetation are thus explicitly linked with ecosystem conditions. Vegetation growth is largely determined by sufficient energy and nutrients, as well as soil moisture availability, especially in water-limited regions such as arid and semiarid regions (W. Li et al., 2022;Stocker et al., 2019). Changes in soil moisture can thus impact ecosystem status through water-vegetation feedback. For example, a decrease in soil moisture may strengthen the coupling between vegetation growth and soil moisture, driving ecosystems to more water limited conditions (Berg & Sheffield, 2018). Understanding the degree and spatiotemporal changes of ecosystem water limitation is crucial for the management and usage of ecosystem services.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ecosystem Limitation Indexmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Widespread Increasing Ecosystem Water Limitation During the Past Three Decades in the Yellow River Basin, China

Zhao

Wang

et al. 2023

JGR Biogeosciences

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“…Future projections indicate that T seasonality in the Mediterranean region will further amplify (Yettella & England, 2018), mainly due to the increase in summer warming (Lionello & Scarascia, 2020). A subsequent decrease in soil moisture, driven by the growing evaporative water demand of the atmosphere (Vicente Liz et al., 2019) and more generally by feedbacks between the land surface and the atmosphere (Dirmeyer et al., 2021; Miralles et al., 2012, 2014), is foreseen (Denissen et al., 2022; Seneviratne et al., 2006). Based on analyses of the direct output data from model simulations, the future increase in summer temperatures is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of heatwaves (Hadjinicolaou et al., 2010) and wildfires (Ruffault et al., 2020) and cause serious harm to human health (Lopez‐Bueno et al., 2021; Scortichini et al., 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Amplification of the Temperature Seasonality in the Mediterranean Region Under Anthropogenic Climate Change

Feng

Qian

Materia

2022

Geophysical Research Letters

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Global and regional climate model simulations show that the Mediterranean region is vulnerable to climate change (Diffenbaugh & Giorgi, 2012;Giorgi & Lionello, 2008). Under the influence of global warming, the Mediterranean region is warming much faster in summer than in winter (Giorgi & Lionello, 2008), which is known as Mediterranean amplification (Brogli et al., 2019). Mediterranean summer warming has exceeded warming in other places worldwide (Qian & Zhang, 2015) and is higher than the average level of warming in the northern hemisphere (Lionello & Scarascia, 2018). The Mediterranean region is characterized by a transitional climate regime in the warm season, where evapotranspiration is limited by soil moisture shortages rather than solar radiation, and the soil water content therefore controls the variability of the boundary layer (Materia et al., 2021). This leads to the strong land-atmosphere coupling that becomes established during the Mediterranean summer (Orth & Seneviratne, 2017). A lack of soil moisture is therefore able to amplify and sustain heat anomalies and extremes in this area (Materia et al., 2021;Miralles et al., 2012).Increased summer warming endangers human health (Scortichini et al., 2018) and greatly increases the probability of wildfires (Turco et al., 2013), such as those that affected Italy and Greece in summer 2021 and western Europe in 2022. The amplified warming of summer temperatures compared to that of the winter temperatures in the Mediterranean region corresponds to an enhancement in the temperature seasonality (T seasonality ) (Lee et al., 2021). The T seasonality , also known as the amplitude of the annual cycle of temperature and often expressed by summer-minus-winter temperature, is an important indicator of climate change (

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“…Plants are tightly coupled to the ambient atmosphere through their exchange of energy, water, and carbon. Through this coupling, plants play an essential role in controlling the global cycles of carbon and water, and also modulate earth's surface energy balance (Denissen et al, 2022; Friedlingstein et al, 2019; Gedney et al, 2006; Williams & Torn, 2015). Changing atmospheric conditions such as rising air temperature, or increasing dryness in turn directly impact on plants and their functioning (Bastos et al, 2020; Novick et al, 2016; Reichstein et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emergence of the physiological effects of elevated CO₂ on land–atmosphere exchange of carbon and water

Zhan

Orth

Migliavacca

et al. 2022

Global Change Biology

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Elevated atmospheric CO 2 (eCO 2 ) influences the carbon assimilation rate and stomatal conductance of plants, thereby affecting the global cycles of carbon and water.Yet, the detection of these physiological effects of eCO 2 in observational data remains challenging, because natural variations and confounding factors (e.g., warming) can overshadow the eCO 2 effects in observational data of real-world ecosystems. In this study, we aim at developing a method to detect the emergence of the physiological CO 2 effects on various variables related to carbon and water fluxes. We mimic the observational setting in ecosystems using a comprehensive process-based land surface model QUINCY to simulate the leaf-level effects of increasing atmospheric CO 2 concentrations and their century-long propagation through the terrestrial carbon and water cycles across different climate regimes and biomes. We then develop a statistical method based on the signal-to-noise ratio to detect the emergence of the eCO 2 effects. The eCO 2 effect on gross primary productivity (GPP) emerges at relatively low CO 2 increase (∆[CO 2 ] ~ 20 ppm) where the leaf area index is relatively high. Compared to GPP, the eCO 2 effect causing reduced transpiration water flux (normalized to leaf area) emerges only at relatively high CO 2 increase (∆[CO 2 ] >> 40 ppm), due to the high sensitivity to climate variability and thus lower signal-to-noise ratio. In general, the response to eCO 2 is detectable earlier for variables related to the carbon cycle than the water cycle, when plant productivity is not limited by climatic constraints, and stronger in forest-dominated rather than in grass-dominated ecosystems. Our results provide a step toward when and where we expect to detect physiological CO 2 effects in in-situ flux measurements, how to detect them and encourage future efforts to improve the understanding and quantification of these effects in observations of terrestrial carbon and water dynamics.

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Widespread shift from ecosystem energy to water limitation with climate change

Cited by 142 publications

References 82 publications

Widespread Increasing Ecosystem Water Limitation During the Past Three Decades in the Yellow River Basin, China

Widespread Increasing Ecosystem Water Limitation During the Past Three Decades in the Yellow River Basin, China

Amplification of the Temperature Seasonality in the Mediterranean Region Under Anthropogenic Climate Change

Emergence of the physiological effects of elevated CO₂ on land–atmosphere exchange of carbon and water

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Widespread shift from ecosystem energy to water limitation with climate change

Cited by 142 publications

References 82 publications

Widespread Increasing Ecosystem Water Limitation During the Past Three Decades in the Yellow River Basin, China

Widespread Increasing Ecosystem Water Limitation During the Past Three Decades in the Yellow River Basin, China

Amplification of the Temperature Seasonality in the Mediterranean Region Under Anthropogenic Climate Change

Emergence of the physiological effects of elevated CO2 on land–atmosphere exchange of carbon and water

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Emergence of the physiological effects of elevated CO₂ on land–atmosphere exchange of carbon and water