Esquivel Muelbert, A, Bennett, AC orcid.org/0000-0001-9815-200X, Sullivan, MJP orcid.org/0000-0002-5955-0483 et al. (10 more authors) (2019) A Spatial and Temporal Risk Assessment of the Impacts of El Niño on the Tropical Forest Carbon Cycle: Theoretical Framework, Scenarios, and Implications. Atmosphere, 10 (10). 588. ISSN 2073-4433
Abstract
Strong El Niño events alter tropical climates and may lead to a negative carbon balance in tropical forests and consequently a disruption to the global carbon cycle. The complexity of tropical forests and the lack of data from these regions hamper the assessment of the spatial distribution of El Niño impacts on these ecosystems. Typically, maps of climate anomaly are used to detect areas of greater risk, ignoring baseline climate conditions and forest cover. Here, we integrated climate anomalies from the 1982–1983, 1997–1998, and 2015–2016 El Niño events with baseline climate and forest edge extent, using a risk assessment approach to hypothetically assess the spatial and temporal distributions of El Niño risk over tropical forests under several risk scenarios. The drivers of risk varied temporally and spatially. Overall, the relative risk of El Niño has been increasing driven mainly by intensified forest fragmentation that has led to a greater chance of fire ignition and increased mean annual air temperatures. We identified areas of repeated high risk, where conservation efforts and fire control measures should be focused to avoid future forest degradation and negative impacts on the carbon cycle.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | carbon cycle; physiological thresholds; fire; forest fragmentation; climate change; climate anomalies; drought; tropical forests; biogeography; El Niño |
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 NE/N004655/1 NERC NE/N012542/1 NERC NE/N018656/1 NERC NE/K01644X/1 Royal Society No External Ref Royal Society CH160091 EU - European Union 641762 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 25 Sep 2019 13:25 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 22:00 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | MDPI |
Identification Number: | 10.3390/atmos10100588 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:151266 |