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

Nature Climate Change volume 7, pages 148–152 (2017)Cite this article

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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.

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Figure 1: Changes in trends of land surface temperatures and terrestrial C cycle processes over three decades.
Figure 2: Climate sensitivity of terrestrial carbon cycle processes over the last three decades.
Figure 3: Total respiration estimated from observations and simulated from models.

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Acknowledgements

This work was stimulated by a workshop on abrupt changes in the global carbon cycle sponsored by Princeton University and the The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters. Further support for this research was provided by NSF-DEB no. 1550932 and USDA no. MONZ-1302. W.R.L.A. was supported by a NOAA global change fellowship and W.K.S. was supported by a Luc Hoffman Fellowship. Satellite observations and MOD-17 algorithm development were supported by NASA grant NNX08AG87A to S.W.R. We are also grateful to the global citizens and NOAA scientists who have helped maintain the global atmospheric CO2 observation network. This work was greatly improved through input from colleagues D. Lombardozzi and B. Sullivan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecosystem and Conservation Science, University of Montana, 32 Campus Drive, Missoula, Montana 59801, USA

    Ashley Ballantyne & Steven Running

  2. School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, 1064 East Lowell Street, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA

    William Smith

  3. Department of Biology, University of Utah, 257 South 1400 East, Room 201, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-0840, USA

    William Anderegg

  4. Department of Environmental Science, University of Helsinki, PO Box 65 (Viikinkaari 1), 00014 Helsinki, Finland

    Pekka Kauppi

  5. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Princeton University, 300 Forrestal Road, Sayre Hall, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA

    Jorge Sarmiento

  6. Global Monitoring Division, NOAA ESRL, 325 Broadway R/GMD, Boulder, Colorado 80305-3328, USA

    Pieter Tans

  7. Geophysical Fluids Dynamics Laboratory, 201 Forrestal Road, Princeton, New Jersey 08540-6649, USA

    Elena Shevliakova

  8. US Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073, USA

    Yude Pan

  9. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA

    Benjamin Poulter

  10. College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Exeter, North Park Road, Exeter EX4 4QF, UK

    Alessandro Anav & Pierre Friedlingstein

  11. Woods Hole Research Center, 149 Woods Hole Road, Falmouth, Massachusetts 02540, USA

    Richard Houghton

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Contributions

This study was conceived of at a workshop hosted by J.S. and P.K. and the study was designed by A.B., W.A. and W.S. Atmospheric data were analysed by A.B. and P.T. The compilation and analysis of satellite data was conducted by W.S. and S.R. Simulation data from ESMs were accessed and analysed by A.A., P.F. and E.S. and simulation data from DGVMs was provided by B.P. All authors contributed during the writing of the paper.

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Correspondence to Ashley Ballantyne.

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Ballantyne, A., Smith, W., Anderegg, W. et al. Accelerating net terrestrial carbon uptake during the warming hiatus due to reduced respiration. Nature Clim Change 7, 148–152 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3204

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