| 1. |
- Box, Jason E., et al.
(författare)
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Key indicators of Arctic climate change: 1971–2017
- 2019
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Ingår i: Environmental Research Letters. - : IOP Publishing. - 1748-9326. ; 14:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Key observational indicators of climate change in the Arctic, most spanning a 47 year period (1971–2017) demonstrate fundamental changes among nine key elements of the Arctic system. We find that, coherent with increasing air temperature, there is an intensification of the hydrological cycle, evident from increases in humidity, precipitation, river discharge, glacier equilibrium line altitude and land ice wastage. Downward trends continue in sea ice thickness (and extent) and spring snow cover extent and duration, while near-surface permafrost continues to warm. Several of the climate indicators exhibit a significant statistical correlation with air temperature or precipitation, reinforcing the notion that increasing air temperatures and precipitation are drivers of major changes in various components of the Arctic system. To progress beyond a presentation of the Arctic physical climate changes, we find a correspondence between air temperature and biophysical indicators such as tundra biomass and identify numerous biophysical disruptions with cascading effects throughout the trophic levels. These include: increased delivery of organic matter and nutrients to Arctic near‐coastal zones; condensed flowering and pollination plant species periods; timing mismatch between plant flowering and pollinators; increased plant vulnerability to insect disturbance; increased shrub biomass; increased ignition of wildfires; increased growing season CO2 uptake, with counterbalancing increases in shoulder season and winter CO2 emissions; increased carbon cycling, regulated by local hydrology and permafrost thaw; conversion between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems; and shifting animal distribution and demographics. The Arctic biophysical system is now clearly trending away from its 20th Century state and into an unprecedented state, with implications not only within but beyond the Arctic. The indicator time series of this study are freely downloadable at AMAP.no.
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| 2. |
- Chadburn, Sarah E., et al.
(författare)
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Carbon stocks and fluxes in the high latitudes : using site-level data to evaluate Earth system models
- 2017
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Ingår i: Biogeosciences. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1726-4170 .- 1726-4189. ; 14:22, s. 5143-5169
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- It is important that climate models can accurately simulate the terrestrial carbon cycle in the Arctic due to the large and potentially labile carbon stocks found in permafrost-affected environments, which can lead to a positive climate feedback, along with the possibility of future carbon sinks from northward expansion of vegetation under climate warming. Here we evaluate the simulation of tundra carbon stocks and fluxes in three land surface schemes that each form part of major Earth system models (JSBACH, Germany; JULES, UK; ORCHIDEE, France). We use a site-level approach in which comprehensive, high-frequency datasets allow us to disentangle the importance of different processes. The models have improved physical permafrost processes and there is a reasonable correspondence between the simulated and measured physical variables, including soil temperature, soil moisture and snow. We show that if the models simulate the correct leaf area index (LAI), the standard C3 photosynthesis schemes produce the correct order of magnitude of carbon fluxes. Therefore, simulating the correct LAI is one of the first priorities. LAI depends quite strongly on climatic variables alone, as we see by the fact that the dynamic vegetation model can simulate most of the differences in LAI between sites, based almost entirely on climate inputs. However, we also identify an influence from nutrient limitation as the LAI becomes too large at some of the more nutrient-limited sites. We conclude that including moss as well as vascular plants is of primary importance to the carbon budget, as moss contributes a large fraction to the seasonal CO2 flux in nutrient-limited conditions. Moss photosynthetic activity can be strongly influenced by the moisture content of moss, and the carbon uptake can be significantly different from vascular plants with a similar LAI. The soil carbon stocks depend strongly on the rate of input of carbon from the vegetation to the soil, and our analysis suggests that an improved simulation of photosynthesis would also lead to an improved simulation of soil carbon stocks. However, the stocks are also influenced by soil carbon burial (e.g. through cryoturbation) and the rate of heterotrophic respiration, which depends on the soil physical state. More detailed below-ground measurements are needed to fully evaluate biological and physical soil processes. Furthermore, even if these processes are well modelled, the soil carbon profiles cannot resemble peat layers as peat accumulation processes are not represented in the models. Thus, we identify three priority areas for model development: (1) dynamic vegetation including (a) climate and (b) nutrient limitation effects; (2) adding moss as a plant functional type; and an (3) improved vertical profile of soil carbon including peat processes.
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| 3. |
- Lund, Magnus, et al.
(författare)
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Low impact of dry conditions on the CO2 exchange of a Northern-Norwegian blanket bog
- 2015
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Ingår i: Environmental Research Letters. - : IOP Publishing. - 1748-9326. ; 10:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Northern peatlands hold large amounts of organic carbon (C) in their soils and are as such important in a climate change context. Blanket bogs, i.e. nutrient-poor peatlands restricted to maritime climates, may be extra vulnerable to global warming since they require a positive water balance to sustain their moss dominated vegetation and C sink functioning. This study presents a 4.5 year record of land-atmosphere carbon dioxide (CO2) exchange from the Andoya blanket bog in northern Norway. Compared with other peatlands, the Andoya peatland exhibited low flux rates, related to the low productivity of the dominating moss and lichen communities and the maritime settings that attenuated seasonal temperature variations. It was observed that under periods of high vapour pressure deficit, net ecosystem exchange was reduced, which was mainly caused by a decrease in gross primary production. However, no persistent effects of dry conditions on the CO2 exchange dynamics were observed, indicating that under present conditions and within the range of observed meteorological conditions the Andoya blanket bog retained its C uptake function. Continued monitoring of these ecosystem types is essential in order to detect possible effects of a changing climate.
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| 4. |
- Parmentier, Frans Jan W., et al.
(författare)
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Vulnerability and resilience of the carbon exchange of a subarctic peatland to an extreme winter event
- 2018
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Ingår i: Environmental Research Letters. - : IOP Publishing. - 1748-9326. ; 13:6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Extreme winter events that damage vegetation are considered an important climatic cause of arctic browning - a reversal of the greening trend of the region - and possibly reduce the carbon uptake of northern ecosystems. Confirmation of a reduction in CO2 uptake due to winter damage, however, remains elusive due to a lack of flux measurements from affected ecosystems. In this study, we report eddy covariance fluxes of CO2 from a peatland in northern Norway and show that vegetation CO2 uptake was delayed and reduced in the summer of 2014 following an extreme winter event earlier that year. Strong frost in the absence of a protective snow cover - its combined intensity unprecedented in the local climate record - caused severe dieback of the dwarf shrub species Calluna vulgaris and Empetrum nigrum. Similar vegetation damage was reported at the time along ∼1000 km of coastal Norway, showing the widespread impact of this event. Our results indicate that gross primary production (GPP) exhibited a delayed response to temperature following snowmelt. From snowmelt up to the peak of summer, this reduced carbon uptake by 14 (0-24) g C m-2 (∼12% of GPP in that period) - similar to the effect of interannual variations in summer weather. Concurrently, remotely-sensed NDVI dropped to the lowest level in more than a decade. However, bulk photosynthesis was eventually stimulated by the warm and sunny summer, raising total GPP. Species other than the vulnerable shrubs were probably resilient to the extreme winter event. The warm summer also increased ecosystem respiration, which limited net carbon uptake. This study shows that damage from a single extreme winter event can have an ecosystem-wide impact on CO2 uptake, and highlights the importance of including winter-induced shrub damage in terrestrial ecosystem models to accurately predict trends in vegetation productivity and carbon sequestration in the Arctic and sub-Arctic.
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| 5. |
- Petrescu, Ana Maria Roxana, et al.
(författare)
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The uncertain climate footprint of wetlands under human pressure
- 2015
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 1091-6490 .- 0027-8424. ; 112:15, s. 4594-4599
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Significant climate risks are associated with a positive carbon-temperature feedback in northern latitude carbon-rich ecosystems, making an accurate analysis of human impacts on the net greenhouse gas balance of wetlands a priority. Here, we provide a coherent assessment of the climate footprint of a network of wetland sites based on simultaneous and quasi-continuous ecosystem observations of CO2 and CH4 fluxes. Experimental areas are located both in natural and in managed wetlands and cover a wide range of climatic regions, ecosystem types, and management practices. Based on direct observations we predict that sustained CH4 emissions in natural ecosystems are in the long term (i.e., several centuries) typically offset by CO2 uptake, although with large spatiotemporal variability. Using a space-for-time analogy across ecological and climatic gradients, we represent the chronosequence from natural to managed conditions to quantify the "cost" of CH4 emissions for the benefit of net carbon sequestration. With a sustained pulse-response radiative forcing model, we found a significant increase in atmospheric forcing due to land management, in particular for wetland converted to cropland. Our results quantify the role of human activities on the climate footprint of northern wetlands and call for development of active mitigation strategies for managed wetlands and new guidelines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) accounting for both sustained CH4 emissions and cumulative CO2 exchange.
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| 6. |
- Pirk, Norbert, et al.
(författare)
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Calculations of automatic chamber flux measurements of methane and carbon dioxide using short time series of concentrations
- 2016
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Ingår i: Biogeosciences. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1726-4170 .- 1726-4189. ; 13:4, s. 903-912
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The closed chamber technique is widely used to measure the exchange of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) from terrestrial ecosystems. There is, however, large uncertainty about which model should be used to calculate the gas flux from the measured gas concentrations. Due to experimental uncertainties the simple linear regression model (first-order polynomial) is often applied, even though theoretical considerations of the technique suggest the application of other, curvilinear models. High-resolution automatic chamber systems which sample gas concentrations several hundred times per flux measurement make it possible to resolve the curvilinear behavior and study the information imposed by the natural variability of the temporal concentration changes. We used more than 50 000 such flux measurements of CH4 and CO2 from five field sites located in peat-forming wetlands ranging from 56 to 78 degrees N to quantify the typical differences between flux estimates of different models. In addition, we aimed to assess the curvilinearity of the concentration time series and test the general applicability of curvilinear models. Despite significant episodic differences between the calculated flux estimates, the overall differences are generally found to be smaller than the local flux variability on the plot scale. The curvilinear behavior of the gas concentrations within the chamber is strongly influenced by wind-driven chamber leakage, and less so by changing gas concentration gradients in the soil during chamber closure. Such physical processes affect both gas species equally, which makes it possible to isolate biochemical processes affecting the gases differently, such as photosynthesis limitation by chamber headspace CO2 concentrations under high levels of incoming solar radiation. We assess the possibility to exploit this effect for a partitioning of the net CO2 flux into photosynthesis and ecosystem respiration as an example of how high-resolution automatic chamber measurements could be used for purposes beyond the estimation of the net gas flux. This shows that while linear and curvilinear calculation schemes can provide similar net fluxes, only curvilinear models open additional possibilities for high-resolution automatic chamber measurements.
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| 7. |
- Pirk, Norbert, et al.
(författare)
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Snowpack fluxes of methane and carbon dioxide from high Arctic tundra
- 2016
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research - Biogeosciences. - 2169-8953. ; 121:11, s. 2886-2900
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Measurements of the land-atmosphere exchange of the greenhouse gases methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) in high Arctic tundra ecosystems are particularly difficult in the cold season, resulting in large uncertainty on flux magnitudes and their controlling factors during this long, frozen period. We conducted snowpack measurements of these gases at permafrost-underlain wetland sites in Zackenberg Valley (NE Greenland, 74°N) and Adventdalen Valley (Svalbard, 78°N), both of which also feature automatic closed chamber flux measurements during the snow-free period. At Zackenberg, cold season emissions were 1 to 2 orders of magnitude lower than growing season fluxes. Perennially, CH4 fluxes resembled the same spatial pattern, which was largely attributed to differences in soil wetness controlling substrate accumulation and microbial activity. We found no significant gas sinks or sources inside the snowpack but detected a pulse in the δ13C-CH4 stable isotopic signature of the soil's CH4 source during snowmelt, which suggests the release of a CH4 reservoir that was strongly affected by methanotrophic microorganisms. In the polygonal tundra of Adventdalen, the snowpack featured several ice layers, which suppressed the expected gas emissions to the atmosphere, and conversely lead to snowpack gas accumulations of up to 86 ppm CH4 and 3800 ppm CO2 by late winter. CH4 to CO2 ratios indicated distinctly different source characteristics in the rampart of ice-wedge polygons compared to elsewhere on the measured transect, possibly due to geomorphological soil cracks. Collectively, these findings suggest important ties between growing season and cold season greenhouse gas emissions from high Arctic tundra.
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| 8. |
- Pirk, Norbert, et al.
(författare)
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Toward a statistical description of methane emissions from arctic wetlands
- 2017
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Ingår i: Ambio: a Journal of Human Environment. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0044-7447. ; 46, s. 70-80
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Methane (CH4) emissions from arctic tundra typically follow relations with soil temperature and water table depth, but these process-based descriptions can be difficult to apply to areas where no measurements exist. We formulated a description of the broader temporal flux pattern in the growing season based on two distinct CH4 source components from slow and fast-turnover carbon. We used automatic closed chamber flux measurements from NE Greenland (74°N), W Greenland (64°N), and Svalbard (78°N) to identify and discuss these components. The temporal separation was well-suited in NE Greenland, where the hypothesized slow-turnover carbon peaked at a time significantly related to the timing of snowmelt. The temporally wider component from fast-turnover carbon dominated the emissions in W Greenland and Svalbard. Altogether, we found no dependence of the total seasonal CH4 budget to the timing of snowmelt, and warmer sites and years tended to yield higher CH4 emissions.
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| 9. |
- Qiu, Chunjing, et al.
(författare)
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ORCHIDEE-PEAT (revision 4596), a model for northern peatland CO2, water, and energy fluxes on daily to annual scales
- 2018
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Ingår i: Geoscientific Model Development. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 1991-959X .- 1991-9603. ; 11:2, s. 497-519
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Peatlands store substantial amounts of carbon and are vulnerable to climate change. We present a modified version of the Organising Carbon and Hydrology In Dynamic Ecosystems (ORCHIDEE) land surface model for simulating the hydrology, surface energy, and CO2 fluxes of peatlands on daily to annual timescales. The model includes a separate soil tile in each 0.5° grid cell, defined from a global peatland map and identified with peat-specific soil hydraulic properties. Runoff from non-peat vegetation within a grid cell containing a fraction of peat is routed to this peat soil tile, which maintains shallow water tables. The water table position separates oxic from anoxic decomposition. The model was evaluated against eddy-covariance (EC) observations from 30 northern peatland sites, with the maximum rate of carboxylation (Vcmax) being optimized at each site. Regarding short-term day-to-day variations, the model performance was good for gross primary production (GPP) (r2 Combining double low line 0.76; Nash-Sutcliffe modeling efficiency, MEF Combining double low line 0.76) and ecosystem respiration (ER, r2 Combining double low line 0.78, MEF Combining double low line 0.75), with lesser accuracy for latent heat fluxes (LE, r2 Combining double low line 0.42, MEF Combining double low line 0.14) and and net ecosystem CO2 exchange (NEE, r2 Combining double low line 0.38, MEF Combining double low line 0.26). Seasonal variations in GPP, ER, NEE, and energy fluxes on monthly scales showed moderate to high r2 values (0.57-0.86). For spatial across-site gradients of annual mean GPP, ER, NEE, and LE, r2 values of 0.93, 0.89, 0.27, and 0.71 were achieved, respectively. Water table (WT) variation was not well predicted (r2<0.1), likely due to the uncertain water input to the peat from surrounding areas. However, the poor performance of WT simulation did not greatly affect predictions of ER and NEE. We found a significant relationship between optimized Vcmax and latitude (temperature), which better reflects the spatial gradients of annual NEE than using an average Vcmax value.
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