Journal ArticleDOI
An ecological perspective on extreme climatic events: a synthetic definition and framework to guide future research
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TLDR
A synthetic definition of an extreme climatic event (ECE) is proposed that includes ‘extremeness’ in both the driver and the response and a mechanistic framework for ECEs is used to identify priorities for future research that will enable ecologists to more fully assess the ecological consequences of climate extremes for ecosystem structure and function today and in a future world where their frequency and intensity are expected to increase.Abstract:
Summary
1. Growing recognition of the importance of climate extremes as drivers of contemporary and future ecological dynamics has led to increasing interest in studying these locally and globally important phenomena.
2. Many ecological studies examining the impacts of what are deemed climate extremes, such as heat waves and severe drought, do not provide a definition of extremity, either from a statistical context based on the long-term climatic record or from the perspective of the response of the system – are the effects extreme (unusual or profound) in comparison to normal variability?
3. A synthetic definition of an extreme climatic event (ECE) is proposed that includes ‘extremeness’ in both the driver and the response: an ECE is as an episode or occurrence in which a statistically rare or unusual climatic period alters ecosystem structure and/or function well outside the bounds of what is considered typical or normal variability. This definition is accompanied by a mechanistic framework based on the concept that extreme response thresholds associated with significant community change and altered ecosystem function must be crossed in order for an ECE to occur.
4. Synthesis. A definition and mechanistic framework for ECEs is used to identify priorities for future research that will enable ecologists to more fully assess the ecological consequences of climate extremes for ecosystem structure and function today and in a future world where their frequency and intensity are expected to increase.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
On underestimation of global vulnerability to tree mortality and forest die‐off from hotter drought in the Anthropocene
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify ten contrasting perspectives that shape the vulnerability debate but have not been discussed collectively and present a set of global vulnerability drivers that are known with high confidence: (1) droughts eventually occur everywhere; (2) warming produces hotter Droughts; (3) atmospheric moisture demand increases nonlinearly with temperature during drought; (4) mortality can occur faster in hotter Drought, consistent with fundamental physiology; (5) shorter Drought can become lethal under warming, increasing the frequency of lethal Drought; and (6) mortality happens rapidly
Journal ArticleDOI
Climate extremes and the carbon cycle
Markus Reichstein,Michael Bahn,Philippe Ciais,Dorothea Frank,Miguel D. Mahecha,Sonia I. Seneviratne,Jakob Zscheischler,Jakob Zscheischler,Christian Beer,Christian Beer,Nina Buchmann,David Frank,Dario Papale,Anja Rammig,Pete Smith,Kirsten Thonicke,Marijn van der Velde,Sara Vicca,Ariane Walz,Martin Wattenbach +19 more
TL;DR: The mechanisms and impacts of climate extremes on the terrestrial carbon cycle are explored, and a pathway to improve the understanding of present and future impacts ofClimate extremes onThe terrestrial carbon budget is proposed.
Journal ArticleDOI
The dominant role of semi-arid ecosystems in the trend and variability of the land CO2 sink
Anders Ahlström,Anders Ahlström,Michael R. Raupach,Guy Schurgers,Benjamin Smith,Almut Arneth,Martin Jung,Markus Reichstein,Josep G. Canadell,Pierre Friedlingstein,Atul K. Jain,Etsushi Kato,Benjamin Poulter,Stephen Sitch,Benjamin D. Stocker,Benjamin D. Stocker,Nicolas Viovy,Ying-Ping Wang,Andy Wiltshire,Soenke Zaehle,Ning Zeng +20 more
TL;DR: Using an ensemble of ecosystem and land-surface models and an empirical observation-based product of global gross primary production, it is shown that the mean sink, trend, and interannual variability in CO2 uptake by terrestrial ecosystems are dominated by distinct biogeographic regions.
Journal ArticleDOI
Effects of climate extremes on the terrestrial carbon cycle: concepts, processes and potential future impacts
Dorothe A. Frank,Markus Reichstein,Michael Bahn,Kirsten Thonicke,David Frank,Miguel D. Mahecha,Pete Smith,Marijn van der Velde,Sara Vicca,Flurin Babst,Flurin Babst,Christian Beer,Christian Beer,Nina Buchmann,Josep G. Canadell,Philippe Ciais,Wolfgang Cramer,Andreas Ibrom,Franco Miglietta,Ben Poulter,Anja Rammig,Anja Rammig,Sonia I. Seneviratne,Ariane Walz,Martin Wattenbach,Miguel A. Zavala,Jakob Zscheischler +26 more
TL;DR: It is found that ecosystem responses can exceed the duration of the climate impacts via lagged effects on the carbon cycle, and forests are expected to exhibit the largest net effect of extremes due to their large carbon pools and fluxes, potentially large indirect and lagged impacts, and long recovery time to regain previous stocks.
Journal ArticleDOI
Resistance and resilience of a grassland ecosystem to climate extremes
TL;DR: In this article, the authors experimentally imposed extreme drought and a mid-summer heat wave over two years in a central U.S. grassland and found that the dominant forb was negatively impacted by the drought more than the dominant grass, and this led to a reordering of species abundances within the plant community.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Climate Extremes: Observations, Modeling, and Impacts
David R. Easterling,Gerald A. Meehl,Camille Parmesan,Stanley A. Changnon,Thomas R. Karl,Linda O. Mearns +5 more
TL;DR: Results of observational studies suggest that in many areas that have been analyzed, changes in total precipitation are amplified at the tails, and changes in some temperature extremes have been observed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Europe-wide reduction in primary productivity caused by the heat and drought in 2003
Philippe Ciais,Markus Reichstein,Nicolas Viovy,A. Granier,Jérôme Ogée,Vincent Allard,M. Aubinet,Nina Buchmann,C. Bernhofer,Arnaud Carrara,Frédéric Chevallier,N. de Noblet,Andrew D. Friend,Pierre Friedlingstein,Thomas Grünwald,Bernard Heinesch,Petri Keronen,Alexander Knohl,Gerhard Krinner,Denis Loustau,Giovanni Manca,Giorgio Matteucci,Franco Miglietta,Jean-Marc Ourcival,Dario Papale,Kim Pilegaard,Serge Rambal,G. Seufert,Jean-François Soussana,María José Sanz,Ernst Detlef Schulze,Timo Vesala,Riccardo Valentini +32 more
TL;DR: An increase in future drought events could turn temperate ecosystems into carbon sources, contributing to positive carbon-climate feedbacks already anticipated in the tropics and at high latitudes.
Journal ArticleDOI
The role of increasing temperature variability in European summer heatwaves
Christoph Schär,Pier Luigi Vidale,Daniel Lüthi,Christoph Frei,Christian Häberli,Mark A. Liniger,Christof Appenzeller +6 more
TL;DR: It is found that an event like that of summer 2003 is statistically extremely unlikely, even when the observed warming is taken into account, and it is proposed that a regime with an increased variability of temperatures (in addition to increases in mean temperature) may be able to account for summer 2003.
Journal ArticleDOI
Regional vegetation die-off in response to global-change-type drought
David D. Breshears,Neil S. Cobb,Paul M. Rich,Kevin P. Price,Craig D. Allen,Randy G. Balice,William H. Romme,Jude H. Kastens,M. Lisa Floyd,Jayne Belnap,Jayne Belnap,Jesse J. Anderson,Orrin Myers,Clifton W. Meyer +13 more
TL;DR: The results quantify a trigger leading to rapid, drought-induced die-off of overstory woody plants at subcontinental scale and highlight the potential for such die-offs to be more severe and extensive for future global-change-type drought under warmer conditions.
Journal ArticleDOI
Variation Among Biomes in Temporal Dynamics of Aboveground Primary Production
Alan K. Knapp,Melinda D. Smith +1 more
TL;DR: In the most dynamic biomes, ANPP responded more strongly to wet than to dry years, and recognition of the fourfold range in ANPP dynamics across biomes and of the factors that constrain this variability is critical for detecting the biotic impacts of global change phenomena.
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