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Environmental science

The carbon cycle under stress

Nature volume 437, pages 483–484 (2005)Cite this article

In the summer of 2003, Europe experienced an exceptionally hot and dry spell. That ‘natural experiment’ prompted a continental-scale analysis of how terrestrial ecosystems respond to such climatic extremes.

Plant ecosystems are major players in the carbon cycle — they take up carbon dioxide in photosynthesis and release it in respiration at rates that are nonlinear functions of temperature. How net carbon exchange by terrestrial ecosystems will be affected by projected global warming, and by the increased incidence of extreme climatic events, is a question under intense investigation. Ciais et al.1 (page 529 of this issue) have taken advantage of an episode of heat and drought that affected Europe during the summer of 2003 to evaluate how net carbon exchange of ecosystems responded.

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Figure 1: Consequences of heat and drought.

P. PAVANI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

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  1. Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, 137 Mulford Hall, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    Dennis Baldocchi

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  1. Dennis Baldocchi
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Baldocchi, D. The carbon cycle under stress. Nature 437, 483–484 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/437483a

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