Slowdown of the greening trend in natural vegetation with further rise in atmospheric CO2

Winkler, Alexander J.; Menyni, Ranga; Hannart, Alexis; Sitch, Stephen; Haverd, Vanessa; Lombardozzi, Danica; Arora, Vivek K.; Pongratz, Julia; Nabel, Julia E. M. S.; Goll, Daniel S.; Kato, Etsushi; Tian, Hanqin; Arneth, Almut; Friedlingstein, Pierre; Atul, Jain; Zaehle, Sönke; Brovkin, Victor

doi:10.1002/essoar.10503202.2

Cited by 16 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 92 publications

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“…In our analysis, where historical precipitation- and temperature-based climate indicators are replaced with ca. 2050 (RCP8.5) analogs to estimate future carbon storage potential, we address only the radiative effects of climate change (i.e., our generalized predictive model does not allow for coupled dynamics and, thus, excludes climate change feedbacks and physiological effects, including CO 2 fertilization—the estimates of which are poorly constrained, highly variable, and contingent on the methods employed) ( 40 – 42 ). While there is strong evidence that a greening of the terrestrial biosphere has occurred during the satellite era, this trend is not driven by CO 2 fertilization, apart from in cool grasslands and temperate forests, and has weakened since 2000 ( 41 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The global potential for increased storage of carbon on land

Walker

Gorelik

Cook‐Patton

et al. 2022

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Significance Despite increased interest in land-based carbon storage as a climate solution, there are physical limits on how much additional carbon can be incorporated into terrestrial ecosystems. To effectively determine where and how to act, jurisdictions need robust data illustrating the magnitude and distribution of opportunities to increase carbon storage, as well as information on the actions available to achieve that storage. Here, we provide globally consistent maps for directing additional carbon storage under current and future climate, as well as a framework for determining how that storage could be gained through restoration, improved management, or maintenance of woody biomass and soil organic matter. Our estimates provide an upper bound on how improved land stewardship can mitigate the climate crisis.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The global potential for increased storage of carbon on land

Walker

Gorelik

Cook‐Patton

et al. 2022

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…The consistent increase of leaf area index (LAI) during the study period, with increasing multimodel spread, reflects the impact of CO 2 fertilization (Donohue et al, 2013;Ukkola et al, 2016;Zhu et al, 2016), (Winkler et al, 2021). Enhanced LAI in turn contributes to increased plant transpiration (Supplementary Figure 4.A4c (Wei et al, 2017)).…”

Section: Continuation Of Present Ecosystem Limitation Trendsmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…This so-called CO 2 fertilization tends to increase the leaf area index (LAI) and related proxies (Donohue et al, 2013;Ukkola et al, 2016;Zhu et al, 2016), which reflects the area of leafs per unit area soil, in turn increasing the surface area from which plants can transpire water (Wei et al, 2017). As LAI and related proxies are projected to increase in the future alongside CO 2 fertilization (Piao et al, 2020), albeit with differences between natural and managed vegetation (Winkler et al, 2021). This could hint at an increasingly important role for vegetation in the global carbon and water cycles.…”

Section: Componentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Next to such (intra-)seasonal regime shifts, they can also be subject to long-term trends spanning multiple decades, resulting from changes in water and/or energy availability due to climate change (Berg and McColl, 2021;Greve et al, 2019). Such long-term trends are challenging to disentangle, because they are complicated (i) by CO 2 fertilization effects on ET (Piao et al, 2020;Winkler et al, 2021), (ii) nutrient availability (Peñuelas et al, 2017) and (iii) land use changes (Tollerud et al, 2020). Within this context, it is paramount to find a robust way to reveal the complex spatiotemporal dynamics of terrestrial evaporation regimes and its drivers.…”

Section: Spatiotemporal Variability Of Terrestrial Evaporation Regimesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While our study presents clear evidence of globally increasing ELI and physical mechanisms behind the changes, the accuracy of the analyses is intrinsically limited due to inherent uncertainties in the models. For example, different representations of some processes that are relevant for ecosystem function cause uncertainty in CMIP6 model simulations including the expected effects of CO 2 fertilization on LAI (Winkler et al, 2021;Zhu et al, 2016), water use efficiency (Donohue et al, 2013;Ukkola et al, 2016) and the implementation of dynamic vegetation (Methods). Some models have also been shown to be over-sensitive to CO 2 fertilization (Kolby Smith et al, 2016).…”

Section: Attribution Of Trends Towards Ecosystem Water Limitationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mapping terrestrial evaporation regimes : a data-driven analysis of land-atmosphere interactions under climate change

Denissen¹

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Increased Global Vegetation Productivity Despite Rising Atmospheric Dryness Over the Last Two Decades

et al. 2022

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Rising atmospheric dryness [vapor pressure deficit (VPD)] can limit photosynthesis and thus reduce vegetation productivity. Meanwhile, plants can benefit from global warming and the fertilization effect of carbon dioxide (CO2). There are growing interests to study climate change impacts on terrestrial vegetation. However, global vegetation productivity responses to recent climate and CO2 trends remain to be fully understood. Here, we provide a comprehensive evaluation of the relative impacts of VPD, temperature, and atmospheric CO2 concentration on global vegetation productivity over the last two decades using a robust ensemble of solar‐induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) and gross primary productivity (GPP) data. We document a significant increase in global vegetation productivity with rising VPD, temperature, and atmospheric CO2 concentration over this period. For global SIF (or GPP), the decrease due to rising VPD was comparable to the increase due to warming but far less than the increase due to elevated CO2 concentration. We found that rising VPD counteracted only a small proportion (approximately 8.1%–15.0%) of the warming and CO2‐induced increase in global SIF (or GPP). Despite the sharp rise in atmospheric dryness imposing a negative impact on plants, the warming and CO2 fertilization effects contributed to a persistent and widespread increase in vegetation productivity over the majority (approximately 66.5%–72.2%) of the globally vegetated areas. Overall, our findings provide a quantitative and comprehensive attribution of rising atmospheric dryness on global vegetation productivity under concurrent climate warming and CO2 increasing.

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Slowdown of the greening trend in natural vegetation with further rise in atmospheric CO2

Cited by 16 publications

References 92 publications

The global potential for increased storage of carbon on land

The global potential for increased storage of carbon on land

Mapping terrestrial evaporation regimes : a data-driven analysis of land-atmosphere interactions under climate change

Increased Global Vegetation Productivity Despite Rising Atmospheric Dryness Over the Last Two Decades

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