Work

Critical impact of vegetation physiology on the continental hydrologic cycle in response to increasing CO 2

Year: 2018

Type: article

Abstract: Significance Predicting how increasing atmospheric CO 2 will affect the hydrologic cycle is of utmost importance for a wide range of applications. It is typically thought that future dryness will depend on precipitation changes, i.e., change in water supply, and changes in evaporative demand due to either increased radiation or temperature. Opposite to this viewpoint, using Earth system models, we show that changes in key water-stress variables will be strongly modified by vegetation physiological effects in response to increased [CO 2 ] at the leaf level. These results emphasize that the continental carbon and water cycles have to be studied as an interconnected system.

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1720712115

Authors: Léo Lemordant, Pierre Gentine, Abigail S. Swann, Benjamin I. Cook, Jacob Scheff

Institutions: Columbia University, University of Washington, Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Language: English

Topic: Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics

Subfield: Global and Planetary Change

Field: Environmental Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Climate action

Open Access status: hybrid

Funder: National Aeronautics and Space Administration