Increasing impacts of extreme droughts on vegetation productivity under climate change

Xu, Chonggang; McDowell, Nate G.; Fisher, Rosie A.; Wei, Liang; Sevanto, Sanna; Christoffersen, Bradley; Weng, Ensheng; Middleton, Richard S.

doi:10.1038/s41558-019-0630-6

Cited by 339 publications

(175 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…The storage of heat in the ocean leads to ocean warming (IPCC, 2020) and is a major contributor to sea-level rise through thermal expansion (WCRP, 2018). Ocean warming alters ocean stratification and ocean mixing processes (Bindoff et al, 2020), affects ocean currents (Hoegh-Guldberg, 2020;Rhein et al, 2018;Yang et al, 2016), impacts tropical cyclones (Hoegh-Guldberg, 2020;Woollings et al, 2012), and is a major player in ocean deoxygenation processes (Breitburg et al, 2018) and carbon sequestration into the ocean (Bopp et al, 2013;Frölicher et al, 2018). Together with ocean acidification and deoxygenation, ocean warming can lead to dramatic changes in ecosystems, biodiversity, population extinctions, coral bleaching and infectious disease, as well as redistribution of habitat (García Molinos et al, 2016;Gattuso et al, 2015;Ramírez et al, 2017).…”

Section: Heat Stored In the Oceanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?

Schuckmann

Cheng

Palmer

et al. 2020

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

232

237

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Abstract. Human-induced atmospheric composition changes cause a radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere which is driving global warming. This Earth energy imbalance (EEI) is the most critical number defining the prospects for continued global warming and climate change. Understanding the heat gain of the Earth system – and particularly how much and where the heat is distributed – is fundamental to understanding how this affects warming ocean, atmosphere and land; rising surface temperature; sea level; and loss of grounded and floating ice, which are fundamental concerns for society. This study is a Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) concerted international effort to update the Earth heat inventory and presents an updated assessment of ocean warming estimates as well as new and updated estimates of heat gain in the atmosphere, cryosphere and land over the period 1960–2018. The study obtains a consistent long-term Earth system heat gain over the period 1971–2018, with a total heat gain of 358±37 ZJ, which is equivalent to a global heating rate of 0.47±0.1 W m−2. Over the period 1971–2018 (2010–2018), the majority of heat gain is reported for the global ocean with 89 % (90 %), with 52 % for both periods in the upper 700 m depth, 28 % (30 %) for the 700–2000 m depth layer and 9 % (8 %) below 2000 m depth. Heat gain over land amounts to 6 % (5 %) over these periods, 4 % (3 %) is available for the melting of grounded and floating ice, and 1 % (2 %) is available for atmospheric warming. Our results also show that EEI is not only continuing, but also increasing: the EEI amounts to 0.87±0.12 W m−2 during 2010–2018. Stabilization of climate, the goal of the universally agreed United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 and the Paris Agreement in 2015, requires that EEI be reduced to approximately zero to achieve Earth's system quasi-equilibrium. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would need to be reduced from 410 to 353 ppm to increase heat radiation to space by 0.87 W m−2, bringing Earth back towards energy balance. This simple number, EEI, is the most fundamental metric that the scientific community and public must be aware of as the measure of how well the world is doing in the task of bringing climate change under control, and we call for an implementation of the EEI into the global stocktake based on best available science. Continued quantification and reduced uncertainties in the Earth heat inventory can be best achieved through the maintenance of the current global climate observing system, its extension into areas of gaps in the sampling, and the establishment of an international framework for concerted multidisciplinary research of the Earth heat inventory as presented in this study. This Earth heat inventory is published at the German Climate Computing Centre (DKRZ, https://www.dkrz.de/, last access: 7 August 2020) under the DOI https://doi.org/10.26050/WDCC/GCOS_EHI_EXP_v2 (von Schuckmann et al., 2020).

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Section: Heat Stored In the Oceanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?

Schuckmann

Cheng

Palmer

et al. 2020

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

232

237

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“…Both of these processes are potential "tipping points" (Lenton et al, 2019(Lenton et al, , 2008Lenton, 2011) leading to possible positive feedbacks on the climate system (Leifeld et al, 2019;MacDougall et al, 2012). Increased land energy is related to decreases in soil moisture that may enhance the occurrence of extreme heat events (Jeong et al, 2016;Seneviratne et al, 2006Seneviratne et al, , 2014Seneviratne et al, , 2010Xu et al, 2019). Such extreme events have demonstrated negative health effects in the most vulnerable sectors of the human and animal population (Matthews et al, 2017;McPherson et al, 2017;Sherwood and Huber, 2010;Watts et al, 2019).…”

Section: Heat Available To Warm Landmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heat stored in the Earth system: Where does the energy go? The GCOS Earth heat inventory team

Schuckmann¹,

Cheng²,

Palmer³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Abstract. Human-induced atmospheric composition changes cause a radiative imbalance at the top-of-atmosphere which is driving global warming. This Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) is a fundamental metric of climate change. Understanding the heat gain of the Earth system from this accumulated heat – and particularly how much and where the heat is distributed in the Earth system – is fundamental to understanding how this affects warming oceans, atmosphere and land, rising temperatures and sea level, and loss of grounded and floating ice, which are fundamental concerns for society. This study is a Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) concerted international effort to update the Earth heat inventory, and presents an updated international assessment of ocean warming estimates, and new and updated estimates of heat gain in the atmosphere, cryosphere and land over the period 1960–2018. The study obtains a consistent long-term Earth system heat gain over the past 58 years, with a total heat gain of 393 &pm; 40 ZJ, which is equivalent to a heating rate of 0.42 &pm; 0.04 W m−2. The majority of the heat gain (89 %) takes place in the global ocean (0–700 m: 53 %; 700–2000 m: 28 %; > 2000 m: 8 %), while it amounts to 6 % for the land heat gain, to 4 % available for the melting of grounded and floating ice, and to 1 % for atmospheric warming. These new estimates indicate a larger contribution of land and ice heat gain (10 % in total) compared to previous estimates (7 %). There is a regime shift of the Earth heat inventory over the past 2 decades, which appears to be predominantly driven by heat sequestration into the deeper layers of the global ocean, and a doubling of heat gain in the atmosphere. However, a major challenge is to reduce uncertainties in the Earth heat inventory, which can be best achieved through the maintenance of the current global climate observing system, its extension into areas of gaps in the sampling, as well as to establish an international framework for concerted multi-disciplinary research of the Earth heat inventory. Earth heat inventory is published at DKRZ (https://www.dkrz.de/) under the doi: https://doi.org/10.26050/WDCC/GCOS_EHI_EXP (von Schuckmann et al., 2020).

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“…In this context, plant water deficit would seriously risk agriculture in arid and semi-arid regions 2 , 3 . A decline in food production may result as a consequence of water deficit stress resulting from frequent drought condition 4 , 5 . This indicates a need to find solutions to mitigate the negative impact of drought on crop production.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transformation of non-water sorbing fly ash to a water sorbing material for drought management

Saha

Sreedeep

Manna

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Securing water in the soil through suitable amendments is one of the methods for drought management in arid regions. In this study, a poor water sorbing fly ash was transformed into a high water-absorbing material for improving soil water retention during the drought period. The fly ash water absorbent (FAWA) exhibited high water-absorbing capacity (WAC) of 310 g/g at par with commercially available superabsorbent hydrogel (SAH). The FAWA showed excellent re-swelling behavior for more than eight alternate wetting–drying cycles. The WAC of FAWA was sensitive to salt type, pH, and ionic strength of the solution. At maximum salinity level permitted for plant growth, the WAC of FAWA was 80 g/g indicating its suitability for drought management. There was only a marginal WAC variation in the range of pH (5.5–7.5) considered most suitable for plant growth. The drying characteristics of FAWA amended soil exhibited an increase in desaturation time by 3.3, 2.2, and 1.5 times for fine sand, silt loam, and clay loam, respectively. The study demonstrates the success of using a low rate of FAWA for drought management with the advantage of offering a non-toxic and eco-friendly solution to mass utilization of industrial solid waste for agricultural applications.

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Increasing impacts of extreme droughts on vegetation productivity under climate change

Cited by 339 publications

References 27 publications

Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?

Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?

Heat stored in the Earth system: Where does the energy go? The GCOS Earth heat inventory team

Transformation of non-water sorbing fly ash to a water sorbing material for drought management

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