Project Funding: 2017 - 2020

NRA: 2016 NASA: Carbon Cycle Science   

Funded by NASA

Abstract:
The amplitude of atmospheric seasonal CO2 cycles in high latitude environments has increased by 30-50% over the last 50 years. The majority of this increase is attributed to greater seasonal CO2 exchange in boreal forests and arctic tundra. From a broad perspective, the increasing amplitude can only be due to increased net CO2 uptake in the growing season and/or increased efflux in the dormant season. A number of studies have identified this, but the contribution from each process remains uncertain. However, even a complete understanding at this level is not sufficient for diagnosing system changes and predictive modeling. A variety of ecosystem processes and responses to global change could be responsible, with important implications for high latitude carbon cycling and climate feedbacks. Our project works to fill this knowledge gap by developing key observational data sets, using them to assess regional patterns and mechanistic drivers, and linking them to new top-down constraints within a hypothesis-driven framework. Our primary project activities include (i) developing a new AVHRR-based fire database for Siberia and linking this to MODIS products to derive a 40-year fire history record for the region; (ii) compiling and synthesizing ground-based CO2 flux measurements across the circumpolar region, and using these to develop a gridded high-latitude flux product; (iii) developing Landsat-based deciduous fraction layers at five-year intervals; (iv) refining the Community Land Model to better represent arctic-boreal Plant Functional Type carbon cycling, and using this for a suite of hypothesis- and observation-driven model experiments; and (v) utilizing new top-down inversions and atmospheric transport models to constrain regional contributions to arctic-boreal CO2 amplification. Here we present progress on new data products, model development, initial results, and near-future plans.

Publications:

Birch, L., Schwalm, C. R., Natali, S., Lombardozzi, D., Keppel-Aleks, G., Watts, J., Lin, X., Zona, D., Oechel, W., Sachs, T., Black, T. A., Rogers, B. M. 2021. Addressing biases in Arctic-boreal carbon cycling in the Community Land Model Version 5. Geoscientific Model Development. 14(6), 3361-3382. DOI: 10.5194/gmd-14-3361-2021

Duncan, B. N., Ott, L. E., Abshire, J. B., Brucker, L., Carroll, M. L., Carton, J., Comiso, J. C., Dinnat, E. P., Forbes, B. C., Gonsamo, A., Gregg, W. W., Hall, D. K., Ialongo, I., Jandt, R., Kahn, R. A., Karpechko, A., Kawa, S. R., Kato, S., Kumpula, T., Kyrola, E., Loboda, T. V., McDonald, K. C., Montesano, P. M., Nassar, R., Neigh, C. S., Parkinson, C. L., Poulter, B., Pulliainen, J., Rautiainen, K., Rogers, B. M., Rousseaux, C. S., Soja, A. J., Steiner, N., Tamminen, J., Taylor, P. C., Tzortziou, M. A., Virta, H., Wang, J. S., Watts, J. D., Winker, D. M., Wu, D. L. 2020. Space-Based Observations for Understanding Changes in the Arctic-Boreal Zone. Reviews of Geophysics. 58(1). DOI: 10.1029/2019RG000652

Fisher, J. B., Hayes, D. J., Schwalm, C. R., Huntzinger, D. N., Stofferahn, E., Schaefer, K., Luo, Y., Wullschleger, S. D., Goetz, S., Miller, C. E., Griffith, P., Chadburn, S., Chatterjee, A., Ciais, P., Douglas, T. A., Genet, H., Ito, A., Neigh, C. S. R., Poulter, B., Rogers, B. M., Sonnentag, O., Tian, H., Wang, W., Xue, Y., Yang, Z., Zeng, N., Zhang, Z. 2018. Missing pieces to modeling the Arctic-Boreal puzzle. Environmental Research Letters. 13(2), 020202. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aa9d9a

Lin, X., Rogers, B. M., Sweeney, C., Chevallier, F., Arshinov, M., Dlugokencky, E., Machida, T., Sasakawa, M., Tans, P., Keppel-Aleks, G. 2020. Siberian and temperate ecosystems shape Northern Hemisphere atmospheric CO 2 seasonal amplification. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 117(35), 21079-21087. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1914135117

Liu, Z., Kimball, J. S., Ballantyne, A. P., Parazoo, N. C., Wang, W. J., Bastos, A., Madani, N., Natali, S. M., Watts, J. D., Rogers, B. M., Ciais, P., Yu, K., Virkkala, A., Chevallier, F., Peters, W., Patra, P. K., Chandra, N. 2022. Respiratory loss during late-growing season determines the net carbon dioxide sink in northern permafrost regions. Nature Communications. 13(1). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-33293-x

Madani, N., Parazoo, N. C., Kimball, J. S., Reichle, R. H., Chatterjee, A., Watts, J. D., Saatchi, S., Liu, Z., Endsley, A., Tagesson, T., Rogers, B. M., Xu, L., Wang, J. A., Magney, T., Miller, C. E. 2021. The Impacts of Climate and Wildfire on Ecosystem Gross Primary Productivity in Alaska. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences. 126(6). DOI: 10.1029/2020JG006078

Massey, R., Rogers, B. M., Berner, L. T., Cooperdock, S., Mack, M. C., Walker, X. J., Goetz, S. J. 2023. Forest composition change and biophysical climate feedbacks across boreal North America. Nature Climate Change. DOI: 10.1038/s41558-023-01851-w

Mekonnen, Z. A., Riley, W. J., Randerson, J. T., Grant, R. F., Rogers, B. M. 2019. Expansion of high-latitude deciduous forests driven by interactions between climate warming and fire. Nature Plants. 5(9), 952-958. DOI: 10.1038/s41477-019-0495-8

Potter, S., Cooperdock, S., Veraverbeke, S., Walker, X., Mack, M. C., Goetz, S. J., Baltzer, J., Bourgeau-Chavez, L., Burrell, A., Dieleman, C., French, N., Hantson, S., Hoy, E. E., Jenkins, L., Johnstone, J. F., Kane, E. S., Natali, S. M., Randerson, J. T., Turetsky, M. R., Whitman, E., Wiggins, E., Rogers, B. M. 2023. Burned area and carbon emissions across northwestern boreal North America from 2001-2019. Biogeosciences. 20(13), 2785-2804. DOI: 10.5194/bg-20-2785-2023

Virkkala , A., Natali, S. M., Rogers, B. M., Watts, J. D., Savage, K., Connon, S. J., Mauritz, M., Schuur, E. A. G., Peter, D., Minions, C., Nojeim, J., Commane, R., Emmerton, C. A., Goeckede, M., Helbig, M., Holl, D., Iwata, H., Kobayashi, H., Kolari, P., Lopez-Blanco, E., Marushchak, M. E., Mastepanov, M., Merbold, L., Parmentier, F. W., Peichl, M., Sachs, T., Sonnentag, O., Ueyama, M., Voigt, C., Aurela, M., Boike, J., Celis, G., Chae, N., Christensen, T. R., Bret-Harte, M. S., Dengel, S., Dolman, H., Edgar, C. W., Elberling, B., Euskirchen, E., Grelle, A., Hatakka, J., Humphreys, E., Jarveoja, J., Kotani, A., Kutzbach, L., Laurila, T., Lohila, A., Mammarella, I., Matsuura, Y., Meyer, G., Nilsson, M. B., Oberbauer, S. F., Park, S., Petrov, R., Prokushkin, A. S., Schulze, C., St. Louis, V. L., Tuittila, E., Tuovinen, J., Quinton, W., Varlagin, A., Zona, D., Zyryanov, V. I. 2022. The ABCflux database: Arctic-boreal CO<sub>2</sub> flux observations and ancillary information aggregated to monthly time steps across terrestrial ecosystems. Earth System Science Data. 14(1), 179-208. DOI: 10.5194/essd-14-179-2022

Virkkala, A., Aalto, J., Rogers, B. M., Tagesson, T., Treat, C. C., Natali, S. M., Watts, J. D., Potter, S., Lehtonen, A., Mauritz, M., Schuur, E. A. G., Kochendorfer, J., Zona, D., Oechel, W., Kobayashi, H., Humphreys, E., Goeckede, M., Iwata, H., Lafleur, P. M., Euskirchen, E. S., Bokhorst, S., Marushchak, M., Martikainen, P. J., Elberling, B., Voigt, C., Biasi, C., Sonnentag, O., Parmentier, F. W., Ueyama, M., Celis, G., St.Louis, V. L., Emmerton, C. A., Peichl, M., Chi, J., Jarveoja, J., Nilsson, M. B., Oberbauer, S. F., Torn, M. S., Park, S., Dolman, H., Mammarella, I., Chae, N., Poyatos, R., Lopez-Blanco, E., Christensen, T. R., Kwon, M. J., Sachs, T., Holl, D., Luoto, M. 2021. Statistical upscaling of ecosystem CO 2 fluxes across the terrestrial tundra and boreal domain: Regional patterns and uncertainties. Global Change Biology. 27(17), 4040-4059. DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15659

Zhang, Y., Piao, S., Sun, Y., Rogers, B. M., Li, X., Lian, X., Liu, Z., Chen, A., Penuelas, J. 2022. Future reversal of warming-enhanced vegetation productivity in the Northern Hemisphere. Nature Climate Change. 12(6), 581-586. DOI: 10.1038/s41558-022-01374-w

More details may be found in the following project profile(s):

• NASA Terrestrial Ecology (TE) Project Profile
• North American Carbon Program (NACP) Project Profile
• NASA Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) Project Profile