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Piao S, Wang X, Wang K, Li X, Bastos A, Canadell JG, Ciais P, Friedlingstein P, Sitch S. Interannual variation of terrestrial carbon cycle: Issues and perspectives. Glob Chang Biol 2020; 26:300-318. [PMID: 31670435 DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14884] [Citation(s) in RCA: 57] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2019] [Accepted: 10/11/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
With accumulation of carbon cycle observations and model developments over the past decades, exploring interannual variation (IAV) of terrestrial carbon cycle offers the opportunity to better understand climate-carbon cycle relationships. However, despite growing research interest, uncertainties remain on some fundamental issues, such as the contributions of different regions, constituent fluxes and climatic factors to carbon cycle IAV. Here we overviewed the literature on carbon cycle IAV about current understanding of these issues. Observations and models of the carbon cycle unanimously show the dominance of tropical land ecosystems to the signal of global carbon cycle IAV, where tropical semiarid ecosystems contribute as much as the combination of all other tropical ecosystems. Vegetation photosynthesis contributes more than ecosystem respiration to IAV of the global net land carbon flux, but large uncertainties remain on the contribution of fires and other disturbance fluxes. Climatic variations are the major drivers to the IAV of net land carbon flux. Although debate remains on whether the dominant driver is temperature or moisture variability, their interaction,that is, the dependence of carbon cycle sensitivity to temperature on moisture conditions, is emerging as key regulators of the carbon cycle IAV. On timescales from the interannual to the centennial, global carbon cycle variability will be increasingly contributed by northern land ecosystems and oceans. Therefore, both improving Earth system models (ESMs) with the progressive understanding on the fast processes manifested at interannual timescale and expanding carbon cycle observations at broader spatial and longer temporal scales are critical to better prediction on evolution of the carbon-climate system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shilong Piao
- Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
- Key Laboratory of Alpine Ecology and Biodiversity, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Center for Excellence in Tibetan Earth Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Xuhui Wang
- Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Kai Wang
- Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Xiangyi Li
- Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Ana Bastos
- Department of Geography, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, Munchen, Germany
| | - Josep G Canadell
- Global Carbon Project, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Canberra, ACT, Australia
| | - Philippe Ciais
- Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
- Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, CEA CNRS UVSQ, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
| | - Pierre Friedlingstein
- College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | - Stephen Sitch
- College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
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