scholarly journals Century‐scale patterns and trends of global pyrogenic carbon emissions and fire influences on terrestrial carbon balance

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (9) ◽  
pp. 1549-1566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jia Yang ◽  
Hanqin Tian ◽  
Bo Tao ◽  
Wei Ren ◽  
Chaoqun Lu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Carbon Balance ◽  
Terrestrial Carbon ◽  
Pyrogenic Carbon

scholarly journals Modelling the role of fires in the terrestrial carbon balance by incorporating SPITFIRE into the global vegetation model ORCHIDEE – Part 2: Carbon emissions and the role of fires in the global carbon balance

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 9017-9062 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Yue ◽  
P. Ciais ◽  
P. Cadule ◽  
K. Thonicke ◽  
T. T. van Leeuwen
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Carbon Balance ◽  
Carbon Sink ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Carbon Uptake ◽  
Terrestrial Carbon ◽  
Vegetation Model ◽  
The Future ◽  
Global Vegetation

Abstract. Carbon dioxide emissions from wild and anthropogenic fires return the carbon absorbed by plants to the atmosphere, and decrease the sequestration of carbon by land ecosystems. Future climate warming will likely increase the frequency of fire-triggering drought; so that the future terrestrial carbon uptake will depend on how fires respond to altered climate variation. In this study, we modelled the role of fires in the global terrestrial carbon balance for 1901–2012, using the global vegetation model ORCHIDEE equipped with the SPITFIRE model. We conducted two simulations with and without the fire module being activated, with a static land cover. The simulated global fire carbon emissions for 1997–2009 are 2.1 Pg C yr−1, which is close to the 2.0 Pg C yr−1 as given by the GFED3.1 data. The simulated land carbon uptake after accounting for emissions for 2003–2012 is 3.1Pg C yr−1, within the uncertainty of the residual carbon sink estimation (2.8 ± 0.8 Pg C yr−1). Fires are found to reduce the terrestrial carbon uptake by 0.32 Pg C yr−1 over 1901–2012, that is 20% of the total carbon sink in a world without fire. The fire-induced land sink reduction (SRfire) is significantly correlated with climate variability, with larger sink reduction occurring in warm and dry years, in particular during El Niño events. Our results suggest a symmetrical "respiration equivalence" by fires. During the ten lowest SRfire years (SRfire = 0.17 Pg C yr−1), fires mainly compensate the heterotrophic respiration that would happen if no fires had occurred. By contrast, during the ten highest SRfire fire years (SRfire = 0.49 Pg C yr−1), fire emissions exceed their "respiration equivalence" and create a substantial reduction in terrestrial carbon uptake. Our finding has important implication for the future role of fires in the terrestrial carbon balance, because the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to sequester carbon will be diminished by future climate change characterized by increased drought and more severe El Niño events.

scholarly journals Modelling the role of fires in the terrestrial carbon balance by incorporating SPITFIRE into the global vegetation model ORCHIDEE – Part 2: Carbon emissions and the role of fires in the global carbon balance

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 1321-1338 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Yue ◽  
P. Ciais ◽  
P. Cadule ◽  
K. Thonicke ◽  
T. T. van Leeuwen
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Carbon Balance ◽  
Carbon Sink ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Carbon Uptake ◽  
Terrestrial Carbon ◽  
Vegetation Model ◽  
Global Vegetation ◽  
Partial Compensation

Abstract. Carbon dioxide emissions from wild and anthropogenic fires return the carbon absorbed by plants to the atmosphere, and decrease the sequestration of carbon by land ecosystems. Future climate warming will likely increase the frequency of fire-triggering drought, so that the future terrestrial carbon uptake will depend on how fires respond to altered climate variation. In this study, we modelled the role of fires in the global terrestrial carbon balance for 1901–2012, using the ORCHIDEE global vegetation model equipped with the SPITFIRE model. We conducted two simulations with and without the fire module being activated, using a static land cover. The simulated global fire carbon emissions for 1997–2009 are 2.1 Pg C yr−1, which is close to the 2.0 Pg C yr−1 as estimated by GFED3.1. The simulated land carbon uptake after accounting for emissions for 2003–2012 is 3.1 Pg C yr−1, which is within the uncertainty of the residual carbon sink estimation (2.8 ± 0.8 Pg C yr−1). Fires are found to reduce the terrestrial carbon uptake by 0.32 Pg C yr−1 over 1901–2012, or 20% of the total carbon sink in a world without fire. The fire-induced land sink reduction (SRfire) is significantly correlated with climate variability, with larger sink reduction occurring in warm and dry years, in particular during El Niño events. Our results suggest a "fire respiration partial compensation". During the 10 lowest SRfire years (SRfire = 0.17 Pg C yr−1), fires mainly compensate for the heterotrophic respiration that would occur in a world without fire. By contrast, during the 10 highest SRfire fire years (SRfire = 0.49 Pg C yr−1), fire emissions far exceed their respiration partial compensation and create a larger reduction in terrestrial carbon uptake. Our findings have important implications for the future role of fires in the terrestrial carbon balance, because the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to sequester carbon will be diminished by future climate change characterized by increased frequency of droughts and extreme El Niño events.

Does forest growth acceleration lead to denser stands? Insights from Swiss forests and mechanistic modelling

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Marques ◽  
Ensheng Weng ◽  
Harald Bugmann ◽  
David I. Forrester ◽  
Martina Hobi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tree Growth ◽  
Carbon Balance ◽  
Tree Mortality ◽  
Forest Growth ◽  
Growth Enhancement ◽  
Carbon Sinks ◽  
Terrestrial Carbon ◽  
Model Simulations ◽  
Leaf Level ◽  
Use Efficiency

<p>Forest demographic processes - growth, recruitment and mortality - are being altered by global change. The changing balance between growth and mortality strongly influences forest dynamics and the carbon balance. Elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide (eCO<sub>2</sub>) has been reported to enhance photosynthesis and tree growth rates by increasing both light-use efficiency (LUE) and water-use efficiency (WUE). Tree growth enhancement could be translated into an increase in biomass stocks or could be associated with a reduction in the longevity of trees, thus reducing the ability of forest ecosystems to act as carbon sinks over long timescales. These links between growth and mortality, and the implications for forest stand density and self-thinning relationships are still debated. Scarce empirical evidence exists for how changing drivers affect tree mortality due to existing data and modelling limitations. Understanding the causes of observed mortality trends and the mechanisms underlying these processes is critical for accurate projections of global terrestrial carbon storage and its feedbacks to anthropogenic climate change.</p><p>Here, we combine a mechanistic model with empirical forest data to better understand the causes of changes in tree mortality and the implications for past and future trends in forest tree density. Specifically, we test the Grow-Fast-Die-Young hypothesis to investigate if a leaf-level CO<sub>2</sub> fertilization effect may lead to an increase in the biomass stock in forest stands. We use a novel vegetation demography model (LM3-PPA) which includes vegetation dynamics with biogeochemical processes allowing for explicit representation of individuals and a mechanistic treatment of tree mortality. The key links between leaf-level assimilation and stand dynamics depend on the carbon turnover time. In this sense, we investigate alternative mortality assumptions about the functional dependence of mortality on tree size, tree carbon balance or growth rate. These formulations represent typical approaches to simulate mortality in mechanistic forest models. Model simulations show that increasing photosynthetic LUE leads to higher biomass stocks, with contrasting behavior among mortality assumptions. Empirical data from Swiss forest inventories support the results from the model simulations showing a shift upwards in the self-thinning relationships, with denser stands and bigger trees. This data-supported mortality-modelling helps to identify links between forest responses and environmental changes at the leaf, tree and stand levels and yields new insight into the causes of currently observed terrestrial carbon sinks and future responses.</p>

scholarly journals Consequences of Considering Carbon–Nitrogen Interactions on the Feedbacks between Climate and the Terrestrial Carbon Cycle

2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (15) ◽  
pp. 3776-3796 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrei P. Sokolov ◽  
David W. Kicklighter ◽  
Jerry M. Melillo ◽  
Benjamin S. Felzer ◽  
C. Adam Schlosser ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Sequestration ◽  
Carbon Cycle ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Co2 Concentration ◽  
Nitrogen Dynamics ◽  
Carbon Uptake ◽  
Terrestrial Carbon ◽  
Surface Warming ◽  
Terrestrial Carbon Cycle

Abstract The impact of carbon–nitrogen dynamics in terrestrial ecosystems on the interaction between the carbon cycle and climate is studied using an earth system model of intermediate complexity, the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model (IGSM). Numerical simulations were carried out with two versions of the IGSM’s Terrestrial Ecosystems Model, one with and one without carbon–nitrogen dynamics. Simulations show that consideration of carbon–nitrogen interactions not only limits the effect of CO2 fertilization but also changes the sign of the feedback between the climate and terrestrial carbon cycle. In the absence of carbon–nitrogen interactions, surface warming significantly reduces carbon sequestration in both vegetation and soil by increasing respiration and decomposition (a positive feedback). If plant carbon uptake, however, is assumed to be nitrogen limited, an increase in decomposition leads to an increase in nitrogen availability stimulating plant growth. The resulting increase in carbon uptake by vegetation exceeds carbon loss from the soil, leading to enhanced carbon sequestration (a negative feedback). Under very strong surface warming, however, terrestrial ecosystems become a carbon source whether or not carbon–nitrogen interactions are considered. Overall, for small or moderate increases in surface temperatures, consideration of carbon–nitrogen interactions result in a larger increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration in the simulations with prescribed carbon emissions. This suggests that models that ignore terrestrial carbon–nitrogen dynamics will underestimate reductions in carbon emissions required to achieve atmospheric CO2 stabilization at a given level. At the same time, compensation between climate-related changes in the terrestrial and oceanic carbon uptakes significantly reduces uncertainty in projected CO2 concentration.

scholarly journals Evaluation of Biases in JRA-25/JCDAS Precipitation and Their Impact on the Global Terrestrial Carbon Balance

2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (15) ◽  
pp. 4109-4125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Makoto Saito ◽  
Akihiko Ito ◽  
Shamil Maksyutov
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Cycle ◽  
Carbon Balance ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Precipitation Amount ◽  
Temporal Variations ◽  
Japan Meteorological Agency ◽  
Total Biomass ◽  
Monthly Precipitation ◽  
Precipitation Data ◽  
Terrestrial Carbon

Abstract This study evaluates a modeled precipitation field and examines how its bias affects the modeling of the regional and global terrestrial carbon cycle. Spatial and temporal variations in precipitation produced by the Japanese 25-yr reanalysis (JRA-25)/Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) Climate Data Assimilation System (JCDAS) were compared with two large-scale observation datasets. JRA-25/JCDAS captures the major distribution patterns of annual precipitation and the features of the seasonal cycle. Notable problems include over- and undersimulated areas of precipitation amount in South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia in the 30°N–30°S domain and a large discrepancy in the number of rainfall days. The latter problem was corrected by using a stochastic model based on the probability of the occurrence of dry and wet day series; the monthly precipitation amount was then scaled by the comparison data. Overall, the corrected precipitation performed well in reproducing the spatial distribution of and temporal variations in total precipitation. Both the corrected and original precipitation data were used to simulate regional and global terrestrial carbon cycles using the prognostic biosphere model Vegetation Integrative Simulator for Trace Gases (VISIT). Following bias correction, the model results showed differences in zonal mean photosynthesis uptake and respiration release ranging from −2.0 to +3.3 Pg C yr−1, compared with the original data. The difference in the global terrestrial net carbon exchange rate was 0.3 Pg C yr−1, reflecting the compensation of coincident increases or decreases in carbon sequestration and respiration loss. At the regional scale, the ecosystem carbon cycle and canopy structure, including seasonal variations in autotrophic and heterotrophic respiration and total biomass, were strongly influenced by the input precipitation data. The results highlight the need for precise precipitation data when estimating the global terrestrial carbon balance.

The impact of the 2009/2010 drought on vegetation growth and terrestrial carbon balance in Southwest China

2019 ◽  
Vol 269-270 ◽  
pp. 239-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiangyi Li ◽  
Yue Li ◽  
Anping Chen ◽  
Mengdi Gao ◽  
Ingrid J. Slette ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Balance ◽  
Southwest China ◽  
Terrestrial Carbon ◽  
Vegetation Growth ◽  
The Impact

ECONOMIC AND PHYSICAL MODELING OF LAND USE IN GCAM 3.0 AND AN APPLICATION TO AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY, LAND, AND TERRESTRIAL CARBON

2014 ◽  
Vol 05 (02) ◽  
pp. 1450003 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARSHALL WISE ◽  
KATE CALVIN ◽  
PAGE KYLE ◽  
PATRICK LUCKOW ◽  
JAE EDMONDS
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Crop Yield ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Assessment Model ◽  
Agricultural Crop ◽  
Terrestrial Carbon ◽  
Global Change Assessment Model ◽  
The Impact

The release of the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) version 3.0 represents a major revision in the treatment of agriculture and land-use activities in a model of long-term, global human and physical Earth systems. GCAM 3.0 incorporates greater spatial and temporal resolution compared to GCAM 2.0. In this paper, we document the methods embodied in the new release, describe the motivation for the changes, compare GCAM 3.0 methods to those of other long-term, global agriculture-economy models and apply GCAM 3.0 to explore the impact of changes in agricultural crop yields on global land use and terrestrial carbon. In the absence of continued crop yield improvements throughout the century, not only are cumulative carbon emissions a major source of CO 2 emissions to the atmosphere, but bioenergy production remains trivial — land is needed for food. In contrast, the high crop yield improvement scenario cuts terrestrial carbon emissions dramatically and facilitates both food and energy production.

Exploring the effects of biodiversity and elemental stoichiometry on terrestrial carbon balance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcos Fernández-Martínez ◽  
Jordi Sardans ◽  
Josep Peñuelas ◽  
Ivan Janssens
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
Elemental Composition ◽  
Carbon Balance ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Terrestrial Carbon ◽  
Endogenous Factors ◽  
Ecosystem Carbon ◽  
Elemental Stoichiometry ◽  
Ecosystem Carbon Balance

<p>Global change is affecting the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to sequester carbon. While the effect of climate on ecosystem carbon balance has largely been explored, the role of other potentially important factors that may shift with global change, such as biodiversity and the concentration of nutrients remains elusive. More diverse ecosystems have been shown to be more productive and stable over time and differences in foliar concentrations of N and P are related to large differences in how primary producers function. Here, we used 89 eddy-covariance sites included in the FLUXNET 2015 database, from which we compiled information on climate, species abundance and elemental composition of the main species. With these data, we assessed the relative importance of climate, endogenous factors, biodiversity and community-weighted concentrations of foliar N and P on terrestrial carbon balance. Climate and endogenous factors, such as stand age, are the main determinants of terrestrial C balance and their interannual variability in all types of ecosystems. Elemental stoichiometry, though, played a significant role affecting photosynthesis, an effect that propagates through ecosystem respiration and carbon sequestration. Biodiversity, instead, had a very limited effect on terrestrial carbon balance. We found increased respiration rates and more stable gross primary production with increasing diversity. Our results are the first attempt to investigate the role of biodiversity and the elemental composition of terrestrial ecosystems in ecosystem carbon balance.</p>

scholarly journals Terrestrial carbon balance in a drier world: the effects of water availability in southwestern North America

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 1867-1879 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel A. Biederman ◽  
Russell L. Scott ◽  
Michael L. Goulden ◽  
Rodrigo Vargas ◽  
Marcy E. Litvak ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Water Availability ◽  
Carbon Balance ◽  
Terrestrial Carbon
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