Changes in the carbon cycle of Amazon ecosystems during the 2010 drought

Potter, Christopher; Klooster, Steven; Hiatt, Cyrus; Genovese, Vanessa; Castilla‐Rubio, Juan Carlos

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/6/3/034024

Cited by 57 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 17 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The 2009–2010 drought in the Amazon region was one of the most severe in recent history, and water levels in rivers across the basin reached record low levels by October of 2010 (Xu et al., ). Combined with the effects of the relatively low NPP, which were also caused by drought (Potter, Klooster, Hiatt, Genovese, & Castilla‐Rubio, ), the wetland CH 4 emissions declined significantly in the Amazon Basin and result in a drop in total wetland CH 4 emissions from the entire tropical area.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interannual variation in methane emissions from tropical wetlands triggered by repeated El Niño Southern Oscillation

Zhu

Peng

Ciais

et al. 2017

Global Change Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Methane (CH ) emissions from tropical wetlands contribute 60%-80% of global natural wetland CH emissions. Decreased wetland CH emissions can act as a negative feedback mechanism for future climate warming and vice versa. The impact of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on CH emissions from wetlands remains poorly quantified at both regional and global scales, and El Niño events are expected to become more severe based on climate models' projections. We use a process-based model of global wetland CH emissions to investigate the impacts of the ENSO on CH emissions in tropical wetlands for the period from 1950 to 2012. The results show that CH emissions from tropical wetlands respond strongly to repeated ENSO events, with negative anomalies occurring during El Niño periods and with positive anomalies occurring during La Niña periods. An approximately 8-month time lag was detected between tropical wetland CH emissions and ENSO events, which was caused by the combined time lag effects of ENSO events on precipitation and temperature over tropical wetlands. The ENSO can explain 49% of interannual variations for tropical wetland CH emissions. Furthermore, relative to neutral years, changes in temperature have much stronger effects on tropical wetland CH emissions than the changes in precipitation during ENSO periods. The occurrence of several El Niño events contributed to a lower decadal mean growth rate in atmospheric CH concentrations throughout the 1980s and 1990s and to stable atmospheric CH concentrations from 1999 to 2006, resulting in negative feedback to global warming.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interannual variation in methane emissions from tropical wetlands triggered by repeated El Niño Southern Oscillation

Zhu

Peng

Ciais

et al. 2017

Global Change Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Models and remote sensing are effective tools for assessing how terrestrial carbon cycles respond to droughts on both regional and global scales (Chen et al, 2012a). Several modeling studies have recently been conducted to assess the impact of droughts on the productivity and carbon budget of terrestrial ecosystems for western North America (Schwalm et al, 2012), the southern United States (Chen et al, 2012a), Europe (Ciais et al, 2005;Vetter et al, 2008), Amazonia (Phillips et al, 2009;Potter et al, 2011;Nunes et al, 2012), East Asia Xiao et al, 2009), the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes (Zeng et al, 2005), and the globe Chen et al, 2013). All these studies indicated that droughts significantly influence the terrestrial carbon cycle and might even cause terrestrial ecosystems to shift from carbon sinks to carbon sources Ponce Campos et al, 2013;Piao et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of droughts on carbon sequestration by China's terrestrial ecosystems from 2000 to 2011

Liu

Zhou

et al. 2014

Biogeosciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. In recent years, China's terrestrial ecosystems have experienced frequent droughts. How these droughts have affected carbon sequestration by the terrestrial ecosystems is still unclear. In this study, the process-based Boreal Ecosystem Productivity Simulator (BEPS) model, driven by remotely sensed vegetation parameters, was employed to assess the effects of droughts on net ecosystem productivity (NEP) of terrestrial ecosystems in China from 2000 to 2011. Droughts of differing severity, as indicated by a standard precipitation index (SPI), hit terrestrial ecosystems in China extensively in 2001, 2006, 2009, and 2011. The national total annual NEP exhibited the slight decline of −11.3 Tg C yr−2 during the aforementioned years of extensive droughts. The NEP reduction ranged from 61.1 Tg C yr−1 to 168.8 Tg C yr−1. National and regional total NEP anomalies were correlated with the annual mean SPI, especially in Northwest China, North China, Central China, and Southwest China. The reductions in annual NEP in 2001 and 2011 might have been caused by a larger decrease in annual gross primary productivity (GPP) than in annual ecosystem respiration (ER). The reductions experienced in 2009 might be due to a decrease in annual GPP and an increase in annual ER, while reductions in 2006 could stem from a larger increase in ER than in GPP. The effects of droughts on NEP lagged up to 3–6 months, due to different responses of GPP and ER. In eastern China, where is humid and warm, droughts have predominant and short-term lagged influences on NEP. In western regions, cold and arid, the drought effects on NEP were relatively weaker but prone to lasting longer.

show abstract

“…Climate models suggest increased drought frequency and intensity under some climate change scenarios (Hutyra et al, 2005;Malhi et al, 2008), but these predictions are limited by uncertainties in forecasting rainfall patterns over tropical South America (Marengo et al, 2012). Possible impacts of recurrent droughts over upland Amazonian forests have been addressed (Saleska et al, 2007;Phillips et al, 2009;Lewis et al, 2011;Potter et al, 2011), but little attention has been given to the effects of increased drought intensity and frequency on the aquatic ecosystems of the Amazon floodplains, and especially on herbaceous vegetation (Melack & Coe, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of aquatic macrophyte cover and productivity to flooding variability on the Amazon floodplain

Silva

Mélack

Novo

2013

Global Change Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Macrophyte net primary productivity (NPP) is a significant but understudied component of the carbon budget in large Amazonian floodplains. Annual NPP is determined by the interaction between stem elongation (vertical growth) and plant cover changes (horizontal expansion), each affected differently by flood duration and amplitude. Therefore, hydrological changes as predicted for the Amazon basin could result in significant changes in annual macrophyte NPP. This study investigates the responses of macrophyte horizontal expansion and vertical growth to flooding variability, and its possible effects on the contribution of macrophytes to the carbon budget of Amazonian floodplains. Monthly macrophyte cover was estimated using satellite imagery for the 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 hydrological years, and biomass was measured in situ between 2003 and 2004. Regression models between macrophyte variables and river-stage data were used to build a semiempirical model of macrophyte NPP as a function of water level. Historical river-stage records (1970-2011) were used to simulate variations in NPP, as a function of annual flooding. Vertical growth varied by a factor of ca. 2 over the simulated years, whereas minimum and maximum annual cover varied by ca. 3.5 and 1.5, respectively. Results suggest that these processes act in opposite directions to determine macrophyte NPP, with larger sensitivity to changes in vertical growth, and thus maximum flooding levels. Years with uncommonly large flooding amplitude resulted in the highest NPP values, as both horizontal expansion and vertical growth were enhanced under these conditions. Over the simulated period, annual NPP varied by ca. 1.5 (1.06-1.63 TgC yr(-1) ). A small increasing trend in flooding amplitude, and by extension NPP, was observed for the studied period. Variability in growth rates caused by local biotic and abiotic factors, and the lack of knowledge on macrophyte physiological responses to extreme hydrological conditions remain the major sources of uncertainty.

show abstract

Changes in the carbon cycle of Amazon ecosystems during the 2010 drought

Cited by 57 publications

References 17 publications

Interannual variation in methane emissions from tropical wetlands triggered by repeated El Niño Southern Oscillation

Interannual variation in methane emissions from tropical wetlands triggered by repeated El Niño Southern Oscillation

Impacts of droughts on carbon sequestration by China's terrestrial ecosystems from 2000 to 2011

Responses of aquatic macrophyte cover and productivity to flooding variability on the Amazon floodplain

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About