Articles | Volume 30, issue 15
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-4985-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-4985-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
10 Aug 2026
Research article |
| 10 Aug 2026
| 10 Aug 2026
Declining Sensitivity and Increasing Resistance Time of Ecosystem Water Use Efficiency to Meteorological Drought
Zijun Wang
College of Water Resources and Architectural Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China
Rong Wu
State Key Laboratory of Water Resources Engineering and Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
Yangyang Liu
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
College of Grassland Agriculture, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China
Zhaoying Zhang
Jiangsu Center for Collaborative Innovation in Geographical Information Resource Development and Application, International Institute for Earth System Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210023, China
Zhongming Wen
College of Grassland Agriculture, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China
Zhenqian Wang
Department of Physical Geography and Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University, Stockholm 10691, Sweden
Stephen Sitch
Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
Wenping Yuan
Institute of Carbon Neutrality, Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
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This study explores global soil moisture changes from 2001 to 2021, revealing the distinct response mechanisms of surface and rootzone layers from both a contribution and probability perspective. Climate factors and vegetation both affect soil moisture, with precipitation and vegetation playing key roles in maintaining balance. The research highlights rising drought risks due to increased atmospheric demand and offers insights to support global water management and ecosystem sustainability.
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Oil palm is a major crop in Indonesia, but climate models often treat it as generic cropland. We developed a new way to represent oil palm in the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator. This improved how the model captures carbon stored and released by oil-palm plantations. The work helps estimate emissions from land-use change more realistically, supporting better understanding of tropical agriculture, deforestation and climate impacts.
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Fire is a key process within the Earth system, yet it is often poorly represented in land carbon cycle models used to estimate how much carbon land ecosystems absorb from the atmosphere. We improved these models by applying long-term burned area data reconstructed from satellite observations. This reduced biases and uncertainty in fire carbon emission estimates and improved estimates of land carbon uptake, implying this method could enhance global and regional carbon budget estimates.
Elizabeth Quaye, Ben T. Johnson, James M. Haywood, Guido R. van der Werf, Roland Vernooij, Stephen A. Sitch, and Tom Eames
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 26, 6629–6654, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-6629-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-6629-2026, 2026
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We find aerosol optical depths in a global climate model are overestimated during extreme wildfire events if emissions are scaled up by a factor of two, typically applied to improve simulated aerosol on seasonal–annual timescales. We propose a technique where a variable scaling factor is determined by fuel consumption, improving correlation in five fire-affected areas. We explore the impact of this change on aerosol radiative effects, during extreme events and on broader space and time scales.
Muhammad Junaid Nazir, Longfei Yu, Yunjie Zhang, Jing Zou, Wenping Yuan, and Jing Wei
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-109, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2026-109, 2026
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The Global Aquatic Nitrous oxide Emission Database (GANED) synthesizes 5,130 dissolved concentrations and 7,386 flux measurements from diverse aquatic systems globally. GANED provides the first comprehensive global dataset that systematically distinguishes emission mechanisms across aquatic bodies through interlinked biogeochemical metadata, revealing that aquatic N2O emissions are primarily substrate-controlled rather than climate-controlled, thus enabling more targeted mitigation interventions
Pierre Friedlingstein, Michael O'Sullivan, Matthew W. Jones, Robbie M. Andrew, Dorothee C. E. Bakker, Judith Hauck, Peter Landschützer, Corinne Le Quéré, Hongmei Li, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Clemens Schwingshackl, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Kjetil Aas, Simone R. Alin, Peter Anthoni, Leticia Barbero, Nicholas R. Bates, Nicolas Bellouin, Alice Benoit-Cattin, Carla F. Berghoff, Raffaele Bernardello, Laurent Bopp, Ida Bagus Mandhara Brasika, Matthew A. Chamberlain, Naveen Chandra, Frédéric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Nathan O. Collier, Thomas H. Colligan, Margot Cronin, Laique M. Djeutchouang, Xinyu Dou, Matt P. Enright, Kazutaka Enyo, Michael Erb, Wiley Evans, Richard A. Feely, Liang Feng, Daniel J. Ford, Adrianna Foster, Filippa Fransner, Thomas Gasser, Marion Gehlen, Thanos Gkritzalis, Jefferson Goncalves De Souza, Giacomo Grassi, Luke Gregor, Nicolas Gruber, Bertrand Guenet, Özgür Gürses, Kirsty Harrington, Ian Harris, Jens Heinke, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Akihiko Ito, Andrew R. Jacobson, Atul K. Jain, Tereza Jarníková, Annika Jersild, Fei Jiang, Steve D. Jones, Etsushi Kato, Ralph F. Keeling, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Jürgen Knauer, Yawen Kong, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Charles Koven, Taro Kunimitsu, Xin Lan, Junjie Liu, Zhiqiang Liu, Zhu Liu, Claire Lo Monaco, Lei Ma, Gregg Marland, Patrick C. McGuire, Galen A. McKinley, Joe R. Melton, Natalie Monacci, Erwan Monier, Eric J. Morgan, David R. Munro, Jens D. Müller, Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Lorna R. Nayagam, Yosuke Niwa, Tobias Nutzel, Are Olsen, Abdirahman M. Omar, Naiqing Pan, Sudhanshu Pandey, Denis Pierrot, Zhangcai Qin, Pierre Regnier, Gregor Rehder, Laure Resplandy, Alizée Roobaert, Thais M. Rosan, Christian Rödenbeck, Jörg Schwinger, Ingunn Skjelvan, T. Luke Smallman, Victoria Spada, Mohanan G. Sreeush, Qing Sun, Adrienne J. Sutton, Colm Sweeney, Didier Swingedouw, Roland Séférian, Shintaro Takao, Hiroaki Tatebe, Hanqin Tian, Xiangjun Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Hiroyuki Tsujino, Francesco Tubiello, Erik van Ooijen, Guido R. van der Werf, Sebastiaan J. van de Velde, Anthony P. Walker, Rik Wanninkhof, Xiaojuan Yang, Wenping Yuan, Xu Yue, and Jiye Zeng
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 18, 3211–3288, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-3211-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-3211-2026, 2026
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Soil respiration is a major CO2 source, yet its response to vary nitrogen addition levels remains unclear. Using global data from 226 sites, we found moderate N addition has negligible or slightly positive effects, whereas high N addition consistently suppresses total and microbial respiration. These findings were incorporated into the CLM5 model, improving predictions of soil respiration and carbon storage. Our work elucidates how N deposition alters soil carbon processes and climate feedbacks.
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Zhixuan Guo, Wei Li, Philippe Ciais, Stephen Sitch, Guido R. van der Werf, Simon P. K. Bowring, Ana Bastos, Florent Mouillot, Jiaying He, Minxuan Sun, Lei Zhu, Xiaomeng Du, Nan Wang, and Xiaomeng Huang
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Ida Bagus Mandhara Brasika, Pierre Friedlingstein, Stephen Sitch, Michael O'Sullivan, Maria Carolina Duran-Rojas, Thais Michele Rosan, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Julia Pongratz, Clemens Schwingshackl, Louise P. Chini, and George C. Hurtt
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Xueqin Yang, Qingling Sun, Liusheng Han, Jie Tian, Wenping Yuan, Liyang Liu, Wei Zheng, Mei Wang, Yunpeng Wang, and Xiuzhi Chen
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 3293–3314, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-3293-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-3293-2025, 2025
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Understanding how leaves absorb carbon from the atmosphere is essential for predicting changes in global forests. Young leaves play a key role in this process, but their efficiency has been difficult to measure at large scales. Using satellite data, we developed a new method to track the seasonal patterns of young leaves’ photosynthetic capacity from 2001 to 2018. Our dataset helps scientists better understand forest growth and how ecosystems respond to climate change.
Zijun Wang, Rong Wu, Yangyang Liu, Chenfeng Cui, Na Zhao, Yinghan Zhao, Zhongming Wen, Zhixin Zhang, and Wei Zhang
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2828, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2828, 2025
Preprint archived
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This study explores global soil moisture changes from 2001 to 2021, revealing the distinct response mechanisms of surface and rootzone layers from both a contribution and probability perspective. Climate factors and vegetation both affect soil moisture, with precipitation and vegetation playing key roles in maintaining balance. The research highlights rising drought risks due to increased atmospheric demand and offers insights to support global water management and ecosystem sustainability.
Ruoque Shen, Qiongyan Peng, Xiangqian Li, Xiuzhi Chen, and Wenping Yuan
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 2193–2216, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2193-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2193-2025, 2025
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Rice is a vital staple crop that plays a crucial role in food security in China. However, long-term high-resolution rice distribution maps in China are lacking. This study developed a new rice-mapping method, mitigating the impact of cloud contamination and missing data in optical remote sensing observations on rice mapping. The resulting dataset, CCD-Rice (China Crop Dataset-Rice), achieved high accuracy and showed a strong correlation with statistical data.
Mathew Williams, David T. Milodowski, T. Luke Smallman, Kyle G. Dexter, Gabi C. Hegerl, Iain M. McNicol, Michael O'Sullivan, Carla M. Roesch, Casey M. Ryan, Stephen Sitch, and Aude Valade
Biogeosciences, 22, 1597–1614, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-1597-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-1597-2025, 2025
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Southern African woodlands are important in both regional and global carbon cycles. A new carbon analysis created by combining satellite data with ecosystem modelling shows that the region has a neutral C balance overall but with important spatial variations. Patterns of biomass and C balance across the region are the outcome of climate controls on production and vegetation–fire interactions, which determine the mortality of vegetation and spatial variations in vegetation function.
Zhu Deng, Philippe Ciais, Liting Hu, Adrien Martinez, Marielle Saunois, Rona L. Thompson, Kushal Tibrewal, Wouter Peters, Brendan Byrne, Giacomo Grassi, Paul I. Palmer, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Zhu Liu, Junjie Liu, Xuekun Fang, Tengjiao Wang, Hanqin Tian, Katsumasa Tanaka, Ana Bastos, Stephen Sitch, Benjamin Poulter, Clément Albergel, Aki Tsuruta, Shamil Maksyutov, Rajesh Janardanan, Yosuke Niwa, Bo Zheng, Joël Thanwerdas, Dmitry Belikov, Arjo Segers, and Frédéric Chevallier
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 1121–1152, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-1121-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-1121-2025, 2025
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This study reconciles national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories with updated atmospheric inversion results to evaluate discrepancies for three principal GHG fluxes at the national level. Compared to our previous study, new satellite-based CO2 inversions were included and an updated mask of managed lands was used, improving agreement for Brazil and Canada. The proposed methodology can be regularly applied as a check to assess the gap between top-down inversions and bottom-up inventories.
Pierre Friedlingstein, Michael O'Sullivan, Matthew W. Jones, Robbie M. Andrew, Judith Hauck, Peter Landschützer, Corinne Le Quéré, Hongmei Li, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Are Olsen, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Clemens Schwingshackl, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Robert B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Almut Arneth, Vivek Arora, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Carla F. Berghoff, Henry C. Bittig, Laurent Bopp, Patricia Cadule, Katie Campbell, Matthew A. Chamberlain, Naveen Chandra, Frédéric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Thomas Colligan, Jeanne Decayeux, Laique M. Djeutchouang, Xinyu Dou, Carolina Duran Rojas, Kazutaka Enyo, Wiley Evans, Amanda R. Fay, Richard A. Feely, Daniel J. Ford, Adrianna Foster, Thomas Gasser, Marion Gehlen, Thanos Gkritzalis, Giacomo Grassi, Luke Gregor, Nicolas Gruber, Özgür Gürses, Ian Harris, Matthew Hefner, Jens Heinke, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Andrew R. Jacobson, Atul K. Jain, Tereza Jarníková, Annika Jersild, Fei Jiang, Zhe Jin, Etsushi Kato, Ralph F. Keeling, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Jürgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Xin Lan, Siv K. Lauvset, Nathalie Lefèvre, Zhu Liu, Junjie Liu, Lei Ma, Shamil Maksyutov, Gregg Marland, Nicolas Mayot, Patrick C. McGuire, Nicolas Metzl, Natalie M. Monacci, Eric J. Morgan, Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Craig Neill, Yosuke Niwa, Tobias Nützel, Lea Olivier, Tsuneo Ono, Paul I. Palmer, Denis Pierrot, Zhangcai Qin, Laure Resplandy, Alizée Roobaert, Thais M. Rosan, Christian Rödenbeck, Jörg Schwinger, T. Luke Smallman, Stephen M. Smith, Reinel Sospedra-Alfonso, Tobias Steinhoff, Qing Sun, Adrienne J. Sutton, Roland Séférian, Shintaro Takao, Hiroaki Tatebe, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Olivier Torres, Etienne Tourigny, Hiroyuki Tsujino, Francesco Tubiello, Guido van der Werf, Rik Wanninkhof, Xuhui Wang, Dongxu Yang, Xiaojuan Yang, Zhen Yu, Wenping Yuan, Xu Yue, Sönke Zaehle, Ning Zeng, and Jiye Zeng
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 965–1039, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-965-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-965-2025, 2025
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The Global Carbon Budget 2024 describes the methodology, main results, and datasets used to quantify the anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and their partitioning among the atmosphere, land ecosystems, and the ocean over the historical period (1750–2024). These living datasets are updated every year to provide the highest transparency and traceability in the reporting of CO2, the key driver of climate change.
Flossie Brown, Gerd Folberth, Stephen Sitch, Paulo Artaxo, Marijn Bauters, Pascal Boeckx, Alexander W. Cheesman, Matteo Detto, Ninong Komala, Luciana Rizzo, Nestor Rojas, Ines dos Santos Vieira, Steven Turnock, Hans Verbeeck, and Alfonso Zambrano
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12537–12555, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12537-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12537-2024, 2024
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Ozone is a pollutant that is detrimental to human and plant health. Ozone monitoring sites in the tropics are limited, so models are often used to understand ozone exposure. We use measurements from the tropics to evaluate ozone from the UK Earth system model, UKESM1. UKESM1 is able to capture the pattern of ozone in the tropics, except in southeast Asia, although it systematically overestimates it at all sites. This work highlights that UKESM1 can capture seasonal and hourly variability.
Fang Li, Zhimin Zhou, Samuel Levis, Stephen Sitch, Felicity Hayes, Zhaozhong Feng, Peter B. Reich, Zhiyi Zhao, and Yanqing Zhou
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 6173–6193, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6173-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-6173-2024, 2024
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A new scheme is developed to model the surface ozone damage to vegetation in regional and global process-based models. Based on 4210 data points from ozone experiments, it accurately reproduces statistically significant linear or nonlinear photosynthetic and stomatal responses to ozone in observations for all vegetation types. It also enables models to implicitly capture the variability in plant ozone tolerance and the shift among species within a vegetation type.
Ruoque Shen, Qiongyan Peng, Xiangqian Li, Xiuzhi Chen, and Wenping Yuan
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-147, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-147, 2024
Manuscript not accepted for further review
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Rice is a vital staple crop that plays a crucial role in food security in China. However, long-term high-resolution rice distribution maps in China are lacking. This study developed a new rice mapping method using to address the challenges of cloud contamination and missing data in optical remote sensing observations. The resulting dataset, CCD-Rice (China Crop Dataset-Rice), achieved high accuracy and showed strong correlation with statistical data.
Wolfgang Alexander Obermeier, Clemens Schwingshackl, Ana Bastos, Giulia Conchedda, Thomas Gasser, Giacomo Grassi, Richard A. Houghton, Francesco Nicola Tubiello, Stephen Sitch, and Julia Pongratz
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 16, 605–645, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-605-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-605-2024, 2024
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We provide and compare country-level estimates of land-use CO2 fluxes from a variety and large number of models, bottom-up estimates, and country reports for the period 1950–2021. Although net fluxes are small in many countries, they are often composed of large compensating emissions and removals. In many countries, the estimates agree well once their individual characteristics are accounted for, but in other countries, including some of the largest emitters, substantial uncertainties exist.
Pierre Friedlingstein, Michael O'Sullivan, Matthew W. Jones, Robbie M. Andrew, Dorothee C. E. Bakker, Judith Hauck, Peter Landschützer, Corinne Le Quéré, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Clemens Schwingshackl, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Robert B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Peter Anthoni, Leticia Barbero, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Bertrand Decharme, Laurent Bopp, Ida Bagus Mandhara Brasika, Patricia Cadule, Matthew A. Chamberlain, Naveen Chandra, Thi-Tuyet-Trang Chau, Frédéric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Margot Cronin, Xinyu Dou, Kazutaka Enyo, Wiley Evans, Stefanie Falk, Richard A. Feely, Liang Feng, Daniel J. Ford, Thomas Gasser, Josefine Ghattas, Thanos Gkritzalis, Giacomo Grassi, Luke Gregor, Nicolas Gruber, Özgür Gürses, Ian Harris, Matthew Hefner, Jens Heinke, Richard A. Houghton, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Andrew R. Jacobson, Atul Jain, Tereza Jarníková, Annika Jersild, Fei Jiang, Zhe Jin, Fortunat Joos, Etsushi Kato, Ralph F. Keeling, Daniel Kennedy, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Jürgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Arne Körtzinger, Xin Lan, Nathalie Lefèvre, Hongmei Li, Junjie Liu, Zhiqiang Liu, Lei Ma, Greg Marland, Nicolas Mayot, Patrick C. McGuire, Galen A. McKinley, Gesa Meyer, Eric J. Morgan, David R. Munro, Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Yosuke Niwa, Kevin M. O'Brien, Are Olsen, Abdirahman M. Omar, Tsuneo Ono, Melf Paulsen, Denis Pierrot, Katie Pocock, Benjamin Poulter, Carter M. Powis, Gregor Rehder, Laure Resplandy, Eddy Robertson, Christian Rödenbeck, Thais M. Rosan, Jörg Schwinger, Roland Séférian, T. Luke Smallman, Stephen M. Smith, Reinel Sospedra-Alfonso, Qing Sun, Adrienne J. Sutton, Colm Sweeney, Shintaro Takao, Pieter P. Tans, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Hiroyuki Tsujino, Francesco Tubiello, Guido R. van der Werf, Erik van Ooijen, Rik Wanninkhof, Michio Watanabe, Cathy Wimart-Rousseau, Dongxu Yang, Xiaojuan Yang, Wenping Yuan, Xu Yue, Sönke Zaehle, Jiye Zeng, and Bo Zheng
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 5301–5369, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-5301-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-5301-2023, 2023
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The Global Carbon Budget 2023 describes the methodology, main results, and data sets used to quantify the anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and their partitioning among the atmosphere, land ecosystems, and the ocean over the historical period (1750–2023). These living datasets are updated every year to provide the highest transparency and traceability in the reporting of CO2, the key driver of climate change.
Sian Kou-Giesbrecht, Vivek K. Arora, Christian Seiler, Almut Arneth, Stefanie Falk, Atul K. Jain, Fortunat Joos, Daniel Kennedy, Jürgen Knauer, Stephen Sitch, Michael O'Sullivan, Naiqing Pan, Qing Sun, Hanqin Tian, Nicolas Vuichard, and Sönke Zaehle
Earth Syst. Dynam., 14, 767–795, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-767-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-767-2023, 2023
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Nitrogen (N) is an essential limiting nutrient to terrestrial carbon (C) sequestration. We evaluate N cycling in an ensemble of terrestrial biosphere models. We find that variability in N processes across models is large. Models tended to overestimate C storage per unit N in vegetation and soil, which could have consequences for projecting the future terrestrial C sink. However, N cycling measurements are highly uncertain, and more are necessary to guide the development of N cycling in models.
Aparnna Ravi, Dhanyalekshmi Pillai, Christoph Gerbig, Stephen Sitch, Sönke Zaehle, Vishnu Thilakan, and Chandra Shekhar Jha
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-817, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-817, 2023
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We derive high-resolution terrestrial CO2 fluxes over India from 2012 to 2020. This is achieved by utilizing satellite-based vegetation indices and meteorological data in a data-driven biospheric model. The model simulations are improved by incorporating soil variables and SIF retrievals from satellite instruments and relate them to ecosystem productivity across different biomes. The derived flux products better explain the flux variability compared to other existing model estimates.
Yimian Ma, Xu Yue, Stephen Sitch, Nadine Unger, Johan Uddling, Lina M. Mercado, Cheng Gong, Zhaozhong Feng, Huiyi Yang, Hao Zhou, Chenguang Tian, Yang Cao, Yadong Lei, Alexander W. Cheesman, Yansen Xu, and Maria Carolina Duran Rojas
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 2261–2276, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-2261-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-2261-2023, 2023
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Plants have been found to respond differently to O3, but the variations in the sensitivities have rarely been explained nor fully implemented in large-scale assessment. This study proposes a new O3 damage scheme with leaf mass per area to unify varied sensitivities for all plant species. Our assessment reveals an O3-induced reduction of 4.8 % in global GPP, with the highest reduction of >10 % for cropland, suggesting an emerging risk of crop yield loss under the threat of O3 pollution.
Giacomo Grassi, Clemens Schwingshackl, Thomas Gasser, Richard A. Houghton, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Alessandro Cescatti, Philippe Ciais, Sandro Federici, Pierre Friedlingstein, Werner A. Kurz, Maria J. Sanz Sanchez, Raúl Abad Viñas, Ramdane Alkama, Selma Bultan, Guido Ceccherini, Stefanie Falk, Etsushi Kato, Daniel Kennedy, Jürgen Knauer, Anu Korosuo, Joana Melo, Matthew J. McGrath, Julia E. M. S. Nabel, Benjamin Poulter, Anna A. Romanovskaya, Simone Rossi, Hanqin Tian, Anthony P. Walker, Wenping Yuan, Xu Yue, and Julia Pongratz
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 1093–1114, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1093-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1093-2023, 2023
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Striking differences exist in estimates of land-use CO2 fluxes between the national greenhouse gas inventories and the IPCC assessment reports. These differences hamper an accurate assessment of the collective progress under the Paris Agreement. By implementing an approach that conceptually reconciles land-use CO2 flux from national inventories and the global models used by the IPCC, our study is an important step forward for increasing confidence in land-use CO2 flux estimates.
Pierre Friedlingstein, Michael O'Sullivan, Matthew W. Jones, Robbie M. Andrew, Luke Gregor, Judith Hauck, Corinne Le Quéré, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Are Olsen, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Clemens Schwingshackl, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Robert B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Ramdane Alkama, Almut Arneth, Vivek K. Arora, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Henry C. Bittig, Laurent Bopp, Frédéric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Margot Cronin, Wiley Evans, Stefanie Falk, Richard A. Feely, Thomas Gasser, Marion Gehlen, Thanos Gkritzalis, Lucas Gloege, Giacomo Grassi, Nicolas Gruber, Özgür Gürses, Ian Harris, Matthew Hefner, Richard A. Houghton, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Atul K. Jain, Annika Jersild, Koji Kadono, Etsushi Kato, Daniel Kennedy, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Jürgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Peter Landschützer, Nathalie Lefèvre, Keith Lindsay, Junjie Liu, Zhu Liu, Gregg Marland, Nicolas Mayot, Matthew J. McGrath, Nicolas Metzl, Natalie M. Monacci, David R. Munro, Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Yosuke Niwa, Kevin O'Brien, Tsuneo Ono, Paul I. Palmer, Naiqing Pan, Denis Pierrot, Katie Pocock, Benjamin Poulter, Laure Resplandy, Eddy Robertson, Christian Rödenbeck, Carmen Rodriguez, Thais M. Rosan, Jörg Schwinger, Roland Séférian, Jamie D. Shutler, Ingunn Skjelvan, Tobias Steinhoff, Qing Sun, Adrienne J. Sutton, Colm Sweeney, Shintaro Takao, Toste Tanhua, Pieter P. Tans, Xiangjun Tian, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Hiroyuki Tsujino, Francesco Tubiello, Guido R. van der Werf, Anthony P. Walker, Rik Wanninkhof, Chris Whitehead, Anna Willstrand Wranne, Rebecca Wright, Wenping Yuan, Chao Yue, Xu Yue, Sönke Zaehle, Jiye Zeng, and Bo Zheng
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 4811–4900, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-4811-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-4811-2022, 2022
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The Global Carbon Budget 2022 describes the datasets and methodology used to quantify the anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and their partitioning among the atmosphere, the land ecosystems, and the ocean. These living datasets are updated every year to provide the highest transparency and traceability in the reporting of CO2, the key driver of climate change.
Brendan Byrne, Junjie Liu, Yonghong Yi, Abhishek Chatterjee, Sourish Basu, Rui Cheng, Russell Doughty, Frédéric Chevallier, Kevin W. Bowman, Nicholas C. Parazoo, David Crisp, Xing Li, Jingfeng Xiao, Stephen Sitch, Bertrand Guenet, Feng Deng, Matthew S. Johnson, Sajeev Philip, Patrick C. McGuire, and Charles E. Miller
Biogeosciences, 19, 4779–4799, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-4779-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-4779-2022, 2022
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Plants draw CO2 from the atmosphere during the growing season, while respiration releases CO2 to the atmosphere throughout the year, driving seasonal variations in atmospheric CO2 that can be observed by satellites, such as the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2). Using OCO-2 XCO2 data and space-based constraints on plant growth, we show that permafrost-rich northeast Eurasia has a strong seasonal release of CO2 during the autumn, hinting at an unexpectedly large respiration signal from soils.
Flossie Brown, Gerd A. Folberth, Stephen Sitch, Susanne Bauer, Marijn Bauters, Pascal Boeckx, Alexander W. Cheesman, Makoto Deushi, Inês Dos Santos Vieira, Corinne Galy-Lacaux, James Haywood, James Keeble, Lina M. Mercado, Fiona M. O'Connor, Naga Oshima, Kostas Tsigaridis, and Hans Verbeeck
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 12331–12352, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12331-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-12331-2022, 2022
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Surface ozone can decrease plant productivity and impair human health. In this study, we evaluate the change in surface ozone due to climate change over South America and Africa using Earth system models. We find that if the climate were to change according to the worst-case scenario used here, models predict that forested areas in biomass burning locations and urban populations will be at increasing risk of ozone exposure, but other areas will experience a climate benefit.
Mahdi André Nakhavali, Lina M. Mercado, Iain P. Hartley, Stephen Sitch, Fernanda V. Cunha, Raffaello di Ponzio, Laynara F. Lugli, Carlos A. Quesada, Kelly M. Andersen, Sarah E. Chadburn, Andy J. Wiltshire, Douglas B. Clark, Gyovanni Ribeiro, Lara Siebert, Anna C. M. Moraes, Jéssica Schmeisk Rosa, Rafael Assis, and José L. Camargo
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 5241–5269, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5241-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-5241-2022, 2022
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In tropical ecosystems, the availability of rock-derived elements such as P can be very low. Thus, without a representation of P cycling, tropical forest responses to rising atmospheric CO2 conditions in areas such as Amazonia remain highly uncertain. We introduced P dynamics and its interactions with the N and P cycles into the JULES model. Our results highlight the potential for high P limitation and therefore lower CO2 fertilization capacity in the Amazon forest with low-fertility soils.
Shakirudeen Lawal, Stephen Sitch, Danica Lombardozzi, Julia E. M. S. Nabel, Hao-Wei Wey, Pierre Friedlingstein, Hanqin Tian, and Bruce Hewitson
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 2045–2071, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-2045-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-2045-2022, 2022
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To investigate the impacts of drought on vegetation, which few studies have done due to various limitations, we used the leaf area index as proxy and dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) to simulate drought impacts because the models use observationally derived climate. We found that the semi-desert biome responds strongly to drought in the summer season, while the tropical forest biome shows a weak response. This study could help target areas to improve drought monitoring and simulation.
Pierre Friedlingstein, Matthew W. Jones, Michael O'Sullivan, Robbie M. Andrew, Dorothee C. E. Bakker, Judith Hauck, Corinne Le Quéré, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Rob B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Peter Anthoni, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Laurent Bopp, Thi Tuyet Trang Chau, Frédéric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Margot Cronin, Kim I. Currie, Bertrand Decharme, Laique M. Djeutchouang, Xinyu Dou, Wiley Evans, Richard A. Feely, Liang Feng, Thomas Gasser, Dennis Gilfillan, Thanos Gkritzalis, Giacomo Grassi, Luke Gregor, Nicolas Gruber, Özgür Gürses, Ian Harris, Richard A. Houghton, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Atul Jain, Steve D. Jones, Etsushi Kato, Daniel Kennedy, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Jürgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Arne Körtzinger, Peter Landschützer, Siv K. Lauvset, Nathalie Lefèvre, Sebastian Lienert, Junjie Liu, Gregg Marland, Patrick C. McGuire, Joe R. Melton, David R. Munro, Julia E. M. S. Nabel, Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Yosuke Niwa, Tsuneo Ono, Denis Pierrot, Benjamin Poulter, Gregor Rehder, Laure Resplandy, Eddy Robertson, Christian Rödenbeck, Thais M. Rosan, Jörg Schwinger, Clemens Schwingshackl, Roland Séférian, Adrienne J. Sutton, Colm Sweeney, Toste Tanhua, Pieter P. Tans, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Francesco Tubiello, Guido R. van der Werf, Nicolas Vuichard, Chisato Wada, Rik Wanninkhof, Andrew J. Watson, David Willis, Andrew J. Wiltshire, Wenping Yuan, Chao Yue, Xu Yue, Sönke Zaehle, and Jiye Zeng
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 1917–2005, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1917-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1917-2022, 2022
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The Global Carbon Budget 2021 describes the data sets and methodology used to quantify the emissions of carbon dioxide and their partitioning among the atmosphere, land, and ocean. These living data are updated every year to provide the highest transparency and traceability in the reporting of CO2, the key driver of climate change.
Ruqi Yang, Jun Wang, Ning Zeng, Stephen Sitch, Wenhan Tang, Matthew Joseph McGrath, Qixiang Cai, Di Liu, Danica Lombardozzi, Hanqin Tian, Atul K. Jain, and Pengfei Han
Earth Syst. Dynam., 13, 833–849, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-833-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-833-2022, 2022
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We comprehensively investigate historical GPP trends based on five kinds of GPP datasets and analyze the causes for any discrepancies among them. Results show contrasting behaviors between modeled and satellite-based GPP trends, and their inconsistencies are likely caused by the contrasting performance between satellite-derived and modeled leaf area index (LAI). Thus, the uncertainty in satellite-based GPP induced by LAI undermines its role in assessing the performance of DGVM simulations.
Mathilda Hancock, Stephen Sitch, Fabian Jörg Fischer, Jérôme Chave, Michael O'Sullivan, Dominic Fawcett, and Lina María Mercado
Biogeosciences Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2022-87, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2022-87, 2022
Publication in BG not foreseen
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Global vegetation models often underestimate the spatial variability of carbon stored in the Amazon forest. This paper demonstrates that including spatially varying tree mortality rates, as opposed to a homogeneous rate, in one model, significantly improves its simulations of the forest carbon store. To overcome the limited resolution of tree mortality data, this research presents a simple method of calculating mortality rates across Amazonia using a dependence on wood density.
Zhu Deng, Philippe Ciais, Zitely A. Tzompa-Sosa, Marielle Saunois, Chunjing Qiu, Chang Tan, Taochun Sun, Piyu Ke, Yanan Cui, Katsumasa Tanaka, Xin Lin, Rona L. Thompson, Hanqin Tian, Yuanzhi Yao, Yuanyuan Huang, Ronny Lauerwald, Atul K. Jain, Xiaoming Xu, Ana Bastos, Stephen Sitch, Paul I. Palmer, Thomas Lauvaux, Alexandre d'Aspremont, Clément Giron, Antoine Benoit, Benjamin Poulter, Jinfeng Chang, Ana Maria Roxana Petrescu, Steven J. Davis, Zhu Liu, Giacomo Grassi, Clément Albergel, Francesco N. Tubiello, Lucia Perugini, Wouter Peters, and Frédéric Chevallier
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 1639–1675, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1639-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1639-2022, 2022
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In support of the global stocktake of the Paris Agreement on climate change, we proposed a method for reconciling the results of global atmospheric inversions with data from UNFCCC national greenhouse gas inventories (NGHGIs). Here, based on a new global harmonized database that we compiled from the UNFCCC NGHGIs and a comprehensive framework presented in this study to process the results of inversions, we compared their results of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O).
Benjamin Wild, Irene Teubner, Leander Moesinger, Ruxandra-Maria Zotta, Matthias Forkel, Robin van der Schalie, Stephen Sitch, and Wouter Dorigo
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 1063–1085, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1063-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1063-2022, 2022
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Gross primary production (GPP) describes the conversion of CO2 to carbohydrates and can be seen as a filter for our atmosphere of the primary greenhouse gas CO2. We developed VODCA2GPP, a GPP dataset that is based on vegetation optical depth from microwave remote sensing and temperature. Thus, it is mostly independent from existing GPP datasets and also available in regions with frequent cloud coverage. Analysis showed that VODCA2GPP is able to complement existing state-of-the-art GPP datasets.
Lina Teckentrup, Martin G. De Kauwe, Andrew J. Pitman, Daniel S. Goll, Vanessa Haverd, Atul K. Jain, Emilie Joetzjer, Etsushi Kato, Sebastian Lienert, Danica Lombardozzi, Patrick C. McGuire, Joe R. Melton, Julia E. M. S. Nabel, Julia Pongratz, Stephen Sitch, Anthony P. Walker, and Sönke Zaehle
Biogeosciences, 18, 5639–5668, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-5639-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-5639-2021, 2021
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The Australian continent is included in global assessments of the carbon cycle such as the global carbon budget, yet the performance of dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) over Australia has rarely been evaluated. We assessed simulations by an ensemble of dynamic global vegetation models over Australia and highlighted a number of key areas that lead to model divergence on both short (inter-annual) and long (decadal) timescales.
Ana Bastos, René Orth, Markus Reichstein, Philippe Ciais, Nicolas Viovy, Sönke Zaehle, Peter Anthoni, Almut Arneth, Pierre Gentine, Emilie Joetzjer, Sebastian Lienert, Tammas Loughran, Patrick C. McGuire, Sungmin O, Julia Pongratz, and Stephen Sitch
Earth Syst. Dynam., 12, 1015–1035, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1015-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-12-1015-2021, 2021
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Temperate biomes in Europe are not prone to recurrent dry and hot conditions in summer. However, these conditions may become more frequent in the coming decades. Because stress conditions can leave legacies for many years, this may result in reduced ecosystem resilience under recurrent stress. We assess vegetation vulnerability to the hot and dry summers in 2018 and 2019 in Europe and find the important role of inter-annual legacy effects from 2018 in modulating the impacts of the 2019 event.
Alexander J. Winkler, Ranga B. Myneni, Alexis Hannart, Stephen Sitch, Vanessa Haverd, Danica Lombardozzi, Vivek K. Arora, Julia Pongratz, Julia E. M. S. Nabel, Daniel S. Goll, Etsushi Kato, Hanqin Tian, Almut Arneth, Pierre Friedlingstein, Atul K. Jain, Sönke Zaehle, and Victor Brovkin
Biogeosciences, 18, 4985–5010, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-4985-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-4985-2021, 2021
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Satellite observations since the early 1980s show that Earth's greening trend is slowing down and that browning clusters have been emerging, especially in the last 2 decades. A collection of model simulations in conjunction with causal theory points at climatic changes as a key driver of vegetation changes in natural ecosystems. Most models underestimate the observed vegetation browning, especially in tropical rainforests, which could be due to an excessive CO2 fertilization effect in models.
Louise Chini, George Hurtt, Ritvik Sahajpal, Steve Frolking, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Stephen Sitch, Raphael Ganzenmüller, Lei Ma, Lesley Ott, Julia Pongratz, and Benjamin Poulter
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 4175–4189, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-4175-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-4175-2021, 2021
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Carbon emissions from land-use change are a large and uncertain component of the global carbon cycle. The Land-Use Harmonization 2 (LUH2) dataset was developed as an input to carbon and climate simulations and has been updated annually for the Global Carbon Budget (GCB) assessments. Here we discuss the methodology for producing these annual LUH2 updates and describe the 2019 version which used new cropland and grazing land data inputs for the globally important region of Brazil.
Cited articles
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Short summary
The coupling between water use efficiency (WUE) and drought remains unclear. This study first incorporates the optimal drought timescale at which WUE responds to drought. The results show that optimal drought timescale has gradually lengthened, indicating a weakening WUE-drought coupling, mainly driven by CO₂ fertilization, with surface soil moisture as the most important hydrothermal factor. This study provides new insights into assessing WUE responses to drought.
The coupling between water use efficiency (WUE) and drought remains unclear. This study first...
