Influence Of Climate Change On Nutrient Flows In Boreonemoral Floodplain Ecosystem

TLDR: In this paper, two GCM models (HadCM2 1S92a and ECHAM3TR IS92a) were used to estimate potential climate change and showed that temperature rise is associated mainly with the cold season and significant changes are expected in precipitation pattern.

Abstract: In boreal and boreonemoral zones the weather conditions play an essential role in nutrient flows in rural landscapes. Winter and summer have been the most stable seasons with respect to nutrient losses and changes in processes affecting nutrient release. On the contrary, spring and autumn are associated with generally high nutrient losses due to peak flow, and determine in large scale the character of physicochemical and biological processes also for summer and winter, respectively. The following factors have the highest priority in weatherinduced changes in nutrient fluxes: a) duration of frozen surface, b) snowpack peak water, c) precipitation pattern over warm period, d) duration and continuity of certain weather, e) occurrence of night frost events, f) number of soil freezethaw cycles. Two GCM models (HadCM2 1S92a and ECHAM3TR IS92a) were used to estimate potential climate change. The results show that temperature rise is associated mainly with the cold season and significant changes are expected in precipitation pattern. However, the main weather types will remain the same as nowadays but will have different duration and frequency of occurrence. Climate change scenarios show that both annual polarisation of nutrient flow and the share of irregular short-term nutrient fluxes will increase compared to the present situation in the boreonemoral floodplain. The main share of nutrient losses will occur in October-April and summer will replenish only with small losses.