Gloor, E orcid.org/0000-0002-9384-6341, Wilson, C orcid.org/0000-0001-8494-0697, Chipperfield, MP orcid.org/0000-0002-6803-4149 et al. (12 more authors) (2018) Tropical land carbon cycle responses to 2015/16 El Niño as recorded by atmospheric greenhouse gas and remote sensing data. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 373 (1760). 20170302. ISSN 0962-8436
Abstract
The outstanding tropical land climate characteristic over the past decades is rapid warming, with no significant large-scale precipitation trends. This warming is expected to continue but the effects on tropical vegetation are unknown. El Niño-related heat peaks may provide a test bed for a future hotter world. Here we analyse tropical land carbon cycle responses to the 2015/16 El Niño heat and drought anomalies using an atmospheric transport inversion. Based on the global atmospheric CO₂ and fossil fuel emission records, we find no obvious signs of anomalously large carbon release compared with earlier El Niño events, suggesting resilience of tropical vegetation. We find roughly equal net carbon release anomalies from Amazonia and tropical Africa, approximately 0.5 PgC each, and smaller carbon release anomalies from tropical East Asia and southern Africa. Atmospheric CO anomalies reveal substantial fire carbon release from tropical East Asia peaking in October 2015 while fires contribute only a minor amount to the Amazonian carbon flux anomaly. Anomalously large Amazonian carbon flux release is consistent with downregulation of primary productivity during peak negative near-surface water anomaly (October 2015 to March 2016) as diagnosed by solar-induced fluorescence. Finally, we find an unexpected anomalous positive flux to the atmosphere from tropical Africa early in 2016, coincident with substantial CO release.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
Keywords: | carbon cycle; global warming; fire; tropical forests |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Inst for Climate & Atmos Science (ICAS) (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > Ecology & Global Change (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NERC No External Reference |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 04 Sep 2018 12:11 |
Last Modified: | 26 Oct 2018 21:41 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | The Royal Society |
Identification Number: | 10.1098/rstb.2017.0302 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:135234 |