Paul Miller
Senior lecturer
Self-Amplifying Feedbacks Accelerate Greening and Warming of the Arctic
Author
Summary, in English
Increased greening, higher vegetation productivity, and shrubification have been observed in Arctic tundra in response to recent warming. Such changes have affected the near‐surface climate through opposing biogeophysical feedbacks (BF) associated with changes to albedo and evapotranspiration. However, the likely spatiotemporal variations of BF to future climate change and the consequences for Arctic vegetation and ecology have not been robustly quantified. We apply a regional Earth system model (RCA‐GUESS) interactively coupling atmospheric dynamics to land vegetation response in three potential 21st‐century radiative forcing simulations for the Arctic. We find that BF, dominated by albedo‐mediated warming in early spring and evapotranspiration‐mediated cooling in summer, have the potential to amplify or modulate local warming and enhance summer precipitation over land. The magnitude of these effects depends on radiative forcing and subsequent ecosystem responses. Thus, it is important to account for BF when assessing future Arctic climate change and its ecosystem impacts.
Department/s
- BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
- eSSENCE: The e-Science Collaboration
- Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
- MERGE: ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system
Publishing year
2018-07-20
Language
English
Pages
7102-7111
Publication/Series
Geophysical Research Letters
Volume
45
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Topic
- Climate Research
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1944-8007