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Anders Lindroth

Professor

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Early snowmelt significantly enhances boreal springtime carbon uptake

Author

  • Jouni Pulliainen
  • Mika Aurela
  • Tuomas Laurila
  • Tuula Aalto
  • Matias Takala
  • Miia Salminen
  • Markku Kulmala
  • Alan Barr
  • Martin Heimann
  • Anders Lindroth
  • Ari Laaksonen
  • Chris Derksen
  • Annikki Mäkelä
  • Tiina Markkanen
  • Juha Lemmetyinen
  • Jouni Susiluoto
  • Sigrid Dengel
  • Ivan Mammarella
  • Juha-Pekka Tuovinen
  • Timo Vesala
Show all

Summary, in English

We determine the annual timing of spring recovery from spaceborne microwave radiometer observations across northern hemisphere boreal evergreen forests for 1979–2014. We find a trend of advanced spring recovery of carbon uptake for this period, with a total average shift of 8.1 d (2.3 d/decade). We use this trend to estimate the corresponding changes in gross primary production (GPP) by applying in situ carbon flux observations. Micrometeoro-logical CO2 measurements at four sites in northern Europe and North America indicate that such an advance in spring recovery would have increased the January–June GPP sum by 29 g·C·m−2 [8.4 g·C·m−2 (3.7%)/decade]. We find this sensitivity of the measured springtime GPP to the spring recovery to be in accordance with the corresponding sensitivity derived from simulations with a land ecosystem model coupled to a global circulation model. The model-predicted increase in springtime cumulative GPP was 0.035 Pg/decade [15.5 g·C·m−2 (6.8%)/decade] for Eurasian forests and 0.017 Pg/decade for forests in North America [9.8 g·C·m−2 (4.4%)/decade]. This change in the springtime sum of GPP related to the timing of spring snowmelt is quantified here for boreal evergreen forests.

Department/s

  • Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate

Publishing year

2017-10-17

Language

English

Pages

11081-11086

Publication/Series

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Volume

114

Issue

42

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

National Academy of Sciences

Topic

  • Physical Geography

Keywords

  • Carbon uptake
  • Earth observation
  • Snowmelt

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0027-8424