Anna Michalak

Director, Carnegie Climate and Resilience Hub



Uncertainty in the response of terrestrial carbon sink to environmental drivers undermines carbon-climate feedback predictions


Journal article


D. Huntzinger, A. Michalak, C. R. Schwalm, C. R. Schwalm, P. Ciais, Anthony W. King, Yuanyuan Fang, K. Schaefer, Yaxing Wei, Robert B. Cook, J. B. Fisher, Daniel J. Hayes, Maoyi Huang, Akihiko Ito, A. Jain, Huimin Lei, Huimin Lei, Chaoqun Lu, F. Maignan, J. Mao, N. Parazoo, Shushi Peng, Benjamin Poulter, D. Ricciuto, Xiaoying Shi, Hanqin Tian, Weile Wang, N. Zeng, F. Zhao
Scientific Reports, 2017

Semantic Scholar DOI PubMedCentral PubMed
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APA   Click to copy
Huntzinger, D., Michalak, A., Schwalm, C. R., Schwalm, C. R., Ciais, P., King, A. W., … Zhao, F. (2017). Uncertainty in the response of terrestrial carbon sink to environmental drivers undermines carbon-climate feedback predictions. Scientific Reports.


Chicago/Turabian   Click to copy
Huntzinger, D., A. Michalak, C. R. Schwalm, C. R. Schwalm, P. Ciais, Anthony W. King, Yuanyuan Fang, et al. “Uncertainty in the Response of Terrestrial Carbon Sink to Environmental Drivers Undermines Carbon-Climate Feedback Predictions.” Scientific Reports (2017).


MLA   Click to copy
Huntzinger, D., et al. “Uncertainty in the Response of Terrestrial Carbon Sink to Environmental Drivers Undermines Carbon-Climate Feedback Predictions.” Scientific Reports, 2017.


BibTeX   Click to copy

@article{d2017a,
  title = {Uncertainty in the response of terrestrial carbon sink to environmental drivers undermines carbon-climate feedback predictions},
  year = {2017},
  journal = {Scientific Reports},
  author = {Huntzinger, D. and Michalak, A. and Schwalm, C. R. and Schwalm, C. R. and Ciais, P. and King, Anthony W. and Fang, Yuanyuan and Schaefer, K. and Wei, Yaxing and Cook, Robert B. and Fisher, J. B. and Hayes, Daniel J. and Huang, Maoyi and Ito, Akihiko and Jain, A. and Lei, Huimin and Lei, Huimin and Lu, Chaoqun and Maignan, F. and Mao, J. and Parazoo, N. and Peng, Shushi and Poulter, Benjamin and Ricciuto, D. and Shi, Xiaoying and Tian, Hanqin and Wang, Weile and Zeng, N. and Zhao, F.}
}

Abstract

Terrestrial ecosystems play a vital role in regulating the accumulation of carbon (C) in the atmosphere. Understanding the factors controlling land C uptake is critical for reducing uncertainties in projections of future climate. The relative importance of changing climate, rising atmospheric CO2, and other factors, however, remains unclear despite decades of research. Here, we use an ensemble of land models to show that models disagree on the primary driver of cumulative C uptake for 85% of vegetated land area. Disagreement is largest in model sensitivity to rising atmospheric CO2 which shows almost twice the variability in cumulative land uptake since 1901 (1 s.d. of 212.8 PgC vs. 138.5 PgC, respectively). We find that variability in CO2 and temperature sensitivity is attributable, in part, to their compensatory effects on C uptake, whereby comparable estimates of C uptake can arise by invoking different sensitivities to key environmental conditions. Conversely, divergent estimates of C uptake can occur despite being based on the same environmental sensitivities. Together, these findings imply an important limitation to the predictability of C cycling and climate under unprecedented environmental conditions. We suggest that the carbon modeling community prioritize a probabilistic multi-model approach to generate more robust C cycle projections.



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