Severe Long-Lasting Drought Accelerated Carbon Depletion in the Mongolian Plateau
Date
2019-05-28
Authors
Tian, Hanqin
Zhang, Jien
Yu, Zhen
Pan, Shufen
Dangal, Shree
Zhang, Bowen
Yang, Jia
Pederson, Neil
Hessl, Amy
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Wiley
Abstract
Paleoclimate records identified a severe drought lasting approximately a decade on the Mongolian Plateau during the 2000s, the severity of which was only exceeded by a single drought during the last two millennia. Under high-emission scenarios, arid and semiarid areas are projected to continue to experience a drying trend over the coming decades; therefore, understanding how ecosystems respond to long-lasting drought has global implications. Here we used a process-based ecosystem model to examine the interannual and intra-annual variations in net ecosystem productivity in response to climate extremes across the Mongolian Plateau. We find that the recent-decade drought caused Mongolian terrestrial ecosystems to shift from a carbon (C) sink to a C source, canceling 40% of climate-induced C accumulation over the entire twentieth century. Our study details a shortened C sequestering season, increased summer C source, and accelerated C depletion during the 2000s drought.
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article
Comments
This article is published as Lu, Chaoqun, Hanqin Tian, Jien Zhang, Zhen Yu, Shufen Pan, Shree Dangal, Bowen Zhang, Jia Yang, Neil Pederson, and Amy Hessl. "Severe long‐lasting drought accelerated carbon depletion in the Mongolian Plateau." Geophysical Research Letters 46, no. 10 (2019): 5303-5312. doi:10.1029/2018GL081418.
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©2019. American Geophysical Union
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Funding
This research was supported by NSF Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems program (1210360), National Key R & D Program of China (2017YFA0604702 and
2018YFA0606001), and Iowa State University new faculty start‐up fund.