Accelerating net terrestrial carbon uptake during the warming hiatus due to reduced respiration

Ashley Ballantyne; William Smith; William Anderegg; Pekka Kauppi; Jorge Sarmiento; Pieter Tans; Elena Shevliakova; Yude Pan; Benjamin Poulter; Alessandro Anav; Pierre Friedlingstein; Richard Houghton; Steven Running

doi:10.1038/NCLIMATE3204

Accelerating net terrestrial carbon uptake during the warming hiatus due to reduced respiration

Formally Refereed

Authors:

Ashley Ballantyne, William Smith, William Anderegg, Pekka Kauppi, Jorge Sarmiento, Pieter Tans, Elena Shevliakova, Yude Pan, Benjamin Poulter, Alessandro Anav, Pierre Friedlingstein, Richard Houghton, Steven Running

Year:

2017

Type:

Scientific Journal

Station:

Northern Research Station

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE3204

Source:

Nature Climate Change

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Abstract

The recent 'warming hiatus' presents an excellent opportunity to investigate climate sensitivity of carbon cycle processes. Here we combine satellite and atmospheric observations to show that the rate of net biome productivity (NBP) has significantly accelerated from-0.007 ± 0.065 PgC yr^-2 over the warming period (1982 to 1998) to 0.119 ± 0.071 PgC yr^-2 over the warming hiatus (1998–2012). This acceleration in NBP is not due to increased primary productivity, but rather reduced respiration that is correlated (r = 0.58; P = 0.0007) and sensitive (γ = 4.05 to 9.40 PgC yr^-1 per °C) to land temperatures. Global land models do not fully capture this apparent reduced respiration over the warming hiatus; however, an empirical model including soil temperature and moisture observations better captures the reduced respiration.

Citation

Ballantyne, Ashley; Smith, William; Anderegg, William; Kauppi, Pekka; Sarmiento, Jorge; Tans, Pieter; Shevliakova, Elena; Pan, Yude; Poulter, Benjamin; Anav, Alessandro; Friedlingstein, Pierre; Houghton, Richard; Running, Steven. 2017. Accelerating net terrestrial carbon uptake during the warming hiatus due to reduced respiration. Nature Climate Change. 7(2): 148-152. https://doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE3204.