Abstract
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.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 7102-7111 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Geophysical Research Letters |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue number | 14 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 28 2018 |
Funding
This work was performed as part of the project Advanced Simulation of Arctic Climate and Impact on Northern Regions (ADSIMNOR), funded by the Swedish Research Council FORMAS. We thank Martin Jung who kindly contributed the upscaled LHF data set. The study is a contribution to the strategic research areas Modeling the Regional and Global Earth System (MERGE) and Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in a Changing Climate (BECC), the Lund University Centre for Studies of Carbon Cycle and Climate Interactions (LUCCI), and the Nordic Centre of Excellence (DEFROST). All the data sets used in this study are available in https://doi.org/10.6084/m9. figshare.5960881.v1 and https:// dataguru.lu.se/. J. Mao is supported by the Reducing Uncertainties in Biogeochemical Interactions through Synthesis and Computing Scientific Focus Area (RUBISCO SFA), which is sponsored by the Regional and Global Climate Modeling (RGCM) Program in the Climate and Environmental Sciences Division (CESD) of the Biological and Environmental Research (BER) Program in the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is managed by UT-BATTELLE for DOE under contract DE-AC05- 00OR22725. This work was performed as part of the project Advanced Simulation of Arctic Climate and Impact on Northern Regions (ADSIMNOR), funded by the Swedish Research Council FORMAS. We thank Martin Jung who kindly contributed the upscaled LHF data set. The study is a contribution to the strategic research areas Modeling the Regional and Global Earth System (MERGE) and Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in a Changing Climate (BECC), the Lund University Centre for Studies of Carbon Cycle and Climate Interactions (LUCCI), and the Nordic Centre of Excellence (DEFROST). All the data sets used in this study are available in https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.5960881.v1 and https://dataguru.lu.se/. J. Mao is supported by the Reducing Uncertainties in Biogeochemical Interactions through Synthesis and Computing Scientific Focus Area (RUBISCO SFA), which is sponsored by the Regional and Global Climate Modeling (RGCM) Program in the Climate and Environmental Sciences Division (CESD) of the Biological and Environmental Research (BER) Program in the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is managed by UT-BATTELLE for DOE under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725.