Contrasting physiological and structural vegetation feedbacks in climate change simulations (original) (raw)

Nature volume 387, pages 796–799 (1997) Cite this article

Abstract

Anthropogenic increases in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are predicted to cause a warming of the global climate by modifying radiative forcing1. Carbon dioxide concentration increases may make a further contribution to warming by inducing a physiological response of the global vegetation—a reduced stomatal conductance, which suppresses transpiration2. Moreover, a CO2-enriched atmosphere and the corresponding change in climate may also alter the density of vegetation cover, thus modifying the physicalcharacteristics of the land surface to provide yet another climate feedback3,4,5,6. But such feedbacks from changes in vegetation structure have not yet been incorporated into general circulation model predictions of future climate change. Here we use a general circulation model iteratively coupled to an equilibrium vegetation model to quantify the effects of both physiological and structural vegetation feedbacks on a doubled-CO2 climate. On a global scale, changes in vegetation structure are found to partially offset physiological vegetation–climate feedbacks in the long term, but overall vegetation feedbacks provide significant regional-scale effects.

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Figure 1: Derivation of GCM land surface parameters from leaf area index (LAI).

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Figure 2: Climate change due to doubling the atmospheric concentration of CO2, neglecting vegetation feedback, expressed as differ.

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Figure 3: Physiological and structural vegetation change under doubled atmospheric CO2 concentration (2 × CO2.

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Acknowledgements

We thank E. M. Blyth, J. Foley, R. J. Harding, W. J. Ingram, J. E. Lovelock, J. F. B. Mitchell, P. L. Mitchell, P. R. Rowntree, C. A. Senior, W. J. Shuttleworth, S. F. B. Tett and P. J. Valdes for comments, advice and discussion. This work was supported by the NERC TIGER programme and the UK Department of the Environment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. *Hadley Centre, Meteorological Office, RG12 2SY, Bracknell, UK
    Peter M. Cox
  2. †Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, S10 2TN, Sheffield, UK
    Susan E. Lee & F. Ian Woodward

Authors

  1. Richard A. Betts
  2. Peter M. Cox
  3. Susan E. Lee
  4. F. Ian Woodward

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Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to R.A.B.

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Betts, R., Cox, P., Lee, S. et al. Contrasting physiological and structural vegetation feedbacks in climate change simulations.Nature 387, 796–799 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/42924

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