Precipitation thresholds regulate net carbon exchange at the continental scale.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the sensitivity of ecosystem production and respiration to climate change is critical for predicting terrestrial carbon dynamics. Here we show that the primary control on the inter-annual variability of net ecosystem carbon exchange switches from production to respiration at a precipitation threshold between 750 and 950 mm yr^-1 in the contiguous United States. This precipitation threshold is evident across multiple datasets and scales of observation indicating that it is a robust result and provides a new scaling relationship between climate and carbon dynamics. However, this empirical precipitation threshold is not captured by dynamic global vegetation models, which tend to overestimate the sensitivity of production and underestimate the sensitivity of respiration

SUBMITTER: Liu Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6125429 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature