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Constraints to vegetation growth reduced by region-specific changes in seasonal climate

Hashimoto, H and Nemani, RR and Bala, G and Cao, L and Michaelis, AR and Ganguly, S and Wang, W and Milesi, C and Eastman, R and Lee, T and Myneni, R (2019) Constraints to vegetation growth reduced by region-specific changes in seasonal climate. In: Climate, 7 (2).

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Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cli7020027

Abstract

We qualitatively and quantitatively assessed the factors related to vegetation growth using Earth system models and corroborated the results with historical climate observations. The Earth system models showed a systematic greening by the late 21st century, including increases of up to 100 in Gross Primary Production (GPP) and 60 in Leaf Area Index (LAI). A subset of models revealed that the radiative effects of CO 2 largely control changes in climate, but that the CO 2 fertilization effect dominates the greening. The ensemble of Earth system model experiments revealed that the feedback of surface temperature contributed to 17 of GPP increase in temperature-limited regions, and radiation increase accounted for a 7 increase of GPP in radiation-limited areas. These effects are corroborated by historical observations. For example, observations confirm that cloud cover has decreased over most land areas in the last three decades, consistent with a CO 2 -induced reduction in transpiration. Our results suggest that vegetation may thrive in the starkly different climate expected over the coming decades, but only if plants harvest the sort of hypothesized physiological benefits of higher CO 2 depicted by current Earth system models. © 2019 by the authors.

Item Type: Journal Article
Publication: Climate
Publisher: MDPI AG
Additional Information: Copyright for this article belongs to MDPI AG
Department/Centre: Division of Mechanical Sciences > Centre for Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences
Date Deposited: 08 Apr 2019 11:46
Last Modified: 08 Apr 2019 11:46
URI: http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/62016

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