How does the terrestrial carbon exchange respond to inter-annual climatic variations? : A quantification based on atmospheric CO2 data

The response of the terrestrial net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of CO2 to climate variations and trends may crucially determine the future climate trajectory. Here we directly quantify this response on inter-annual timescales by building a linear regression of inter-annual NEE anomalies against observed air temperature anomalies into an atmospheric inverse calculation based on long-term atmospheric CO2 observations. This allows us to estimate the sensitivity of NEE to inter-annual variations in temperature (seen as a climate proxy) resolved in space and with season. As this sensitivity comprises both direct temperature effects and the effects of other climate variables co-varying with temperature, we interpret it as "inter-annual climate sensitivity". We find distinct seasonal patterns of this sensitivity in the northern extratropics that are consistent with the expected seasonal responses of photosynthesis, respiration, and fire. Within uncertainties, these sensitivity patterns are consistent with independent inferences from eddy covariance data. On large spatial scales, northern extratropical and tropical interannual NEE variations inferred from the NEE-T regression are very similar to the estimates of an atmospheric inversion with explicit inter-annual degrees of freedom. The results of this study offer a way to benchmark ecosystem process models in more detail than existing effective global climate sensitivities. The results can also be used to gap-fill or extrapolate observational records or to separate inter-annual variations from longer-term trends.Peer reviewe

History of El Nino impacts on the global carbon cycle 1957-2017 : a quantification from atmospheric CO2 data

Interannual variations in the large-scale net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of CO2 between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere were estimated for 1957-2017 from sustained measurements of atmospheric CO2 mixing ratios. As the observations are sparse in the early decades, available records were combined into a 'quasi-homogeneous' dataset based on similarity in their signals, to minimize spurious variations from beginning or ending data records. During El Nino events, CO2 is anomalously released from the tropical band, and a few months later also in the northern extratropical band. This behaviour can approximately be represented by a linear relationship of the NEE anomalies and local air temperature anomalies, with sensitivity coefficients depending on geographical location and season. The apparent climate sensitivity of global total NEE against variations in pan-tropically averaged annual air temperature slowly changed over time during the 1957-2017 period, first increasing (though less strongly than in previous studies) but then decreasing again. However, only part of this change can be attributed to actual changes in local physiological or ecosystem processes, the rest probably arising from shifts in the geographical area of dominating temperature variations. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'The impact of the 2015/2016 El Nino on the terrestrial tropical carbon cycle: patterns, mechanisms and implications'.Peer reviewe

Shifted energy fluxes, increased Bowen ratios, and reduced thaw depths linked with drainage-induced changes in permafrost ecosystem structure

Hydrologic conditions are a key factor in Arctic ecosystems, with strong influences on ecosystem structure and related effects on biogeophysical and biogeochemical processes. With systematic changes in water availability expected for large parts of the northern high-latitude region in the coming centuries, knowledge on shifts in ecosystem functionality triggered by altered water levels is crucial for reducing uncertainties in climate change predictions. Here, we present findings from paired ecosystem observations in northeast Siberia comprising a drained and a control site. At the drainage site, the water table has been artificially lowered by up to 30 cm in summer for more than a decade. This sustained primary disturbance in hydrologic conditions has triggered a suite of secondary shifts in ecosystem properties, including vegetation community structure, snow cover dynamics, and radiation budget, all of which influence the net effects of drainage. Reduced thermal conductivity in dry organic soils was identified as the dominating drainage effect on energy budget and soil thermal regime. Through this effect, reduced heat transfer into deeper soil layers leads to shallower thaw depths, initially leading to a stabilization of organic permafrost soils, while the long-term effects on permafrost temperature trends still need to be assessed. At the same time, more energy is transferred back into the atmosphere as sensible heat in the drained area, which may trigger a warming of the lower atmospheric surface layer.Peer reviewe

The European carbon cycle response to heat and drought as seen from atmospheric CO(2)data for 1999-2018

In 2018, central and northern parts of Europe experienced heat and drought conditions over many months from spring to autumn, strongly affecting both natural ecosystems and crops. Besides their impact on nature and society, events like this can be used to study the impact of climate variations on the terrestrial carbon cycle, which is an important determinant of the future climate trajectory. Here, variations in the regional net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of CO(2)between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere were quantified from measurements of atmospheric CO(2)mole fractions. Over Europe, several observational records have been maintained since at least 1999, giving us the opportunity to assess the 2018 anomaly in the context of at least two decades of variations, including the strong climate anomaly in 2003. In addition to an atmospheric inversion with temporally explicitly estimated anomalies, we use an inversion based on empirical statistical relations between anomalies in the local NEE and anomalies in local climate conditions. For our analysis period 1999-2018, we find that higher-than-usual NEE in hot and dry summers may tend to arise in Central Europe from enhanced ecosystem respiration due to the elevated temperatures, and in Southern Europe from reduced photosynthesis due to the reduced water availability. Despite concerns in the literature, the level of agreement between regression-based NEE anomalies and temporally explicitly estimated anomalies indicates that the atmospheric CO(2)measurements from the relatively dense European station network do provide information about the year-to-year variations of Europe's carbon sources and sinks, at least in summer. This article is part of the theme issue 'Impacts of the 2018 severe drought and heatwave in Europe: from site to continental scale'.Peer reviewe

“Cuts in Action”: A High-Density EEG Study Investigating the Neural Correlates of Different Editing Techniques in Film

In spite of their striking differences with real-life perception, films are perceived and understood without effort. Cognitive film theory attributes this to the system of continuity editing, a system of editing guidelines outlining the effect of different cuts and edits on spectators. A major principle in this framework is the 180° rule, a rule recommendation that, to avoid spectators’ attention to the editing, two edited shots of the same event or action should not be filmed from angles differing in a way that expectations of spatial continuity are strongly violated. In the present study, we used high-density EEG to explore the neural underpinnings of this rule. In particular, our analysis shows that cuts and edits in general elicit early ERP component indicating the registration of syntactic violations as known from language, music, and action processing. However, continuity edits and cuts-across the line differ from each other regarding later components likely to be indicating the differences in spatial remapping as well as in the degree of conscious awareness of one’s own perception. Interestingly, a time–frequency analysis of the occipital alpha rhythm did not support the hypothesis that such differences in processing routes are mainly linked to visual attention. On the contrary, our study found specific modulations of the central mu rhythm ERD as an indicator of sensorimotor activity, suggesting that sensorimotor networks might play an important role. We think that these findings shed new light on current discussions about the role of attention and embodied perception in film perception and should be considered when explaining spectators’ different experience of different kinds of cuts

The benefits of investing into improved carbon flux monitoring

Operationalizing a Global Carbon Observing and Analysis System (www.geocarbon.net) would provide a sound basis for monitoring actual carbon fluxes and thus getting quantities right when pricing carbon – be it in a cap-and-trade scheme or under a tax regime. However, such monitoring systems are expensive and—especially in times of economic weakness—budgets for science and environmental policy are under particular scrutiny. In this study, we attempt to demonstrate the magnitude of benefits of improved information about actual carbon fluxes. Such information enables better-informed policy-making and thus paves the way for a more secure investment environment when decarbonizing the energy sector. The numerical results provide a robust indication of a positive social value of improving carbon monitoring systems when compared to their cost, especially for the more ambitious climate policies

Inverse modeling of CO2 sources and sinks using satellite data: a synthetic inter-comparison of measurement techniques and their performance as a function of space and time

Currently two polar orbiting satellite instruments measure CO₂ concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere, while other missions are planned for the coming years. In the future such instruments might become powerful tools for monitoring changes in the atmospheric CO₂ abundance and to improve our quantitative understanding of the leading processes controlling this. At the moment, however, we are still in an exploratory phase where first experiences are collected and promising new space-based measurement concepts are investigated. This study assesses the potential of some of these concepts to improve CO₂ source and sink estimates obtained from inverse modelling. For this purpose the performance of existing and planned satellite instruments is quantified by synthetic simulations of their ability to reduce the uncertainty of the current source and sink estimates in comparison with the existing ground-based network of sampling sites. Our high resolution inversion of sources and sinks (at 8°x10°) allows us to investigate the variation of instrument performance in space and time and at various temporal and spatial scales. The results of our synthetic tests clearly indicate that the satellite performance increases with increasing sensitivity of the instrument to CO₂ near the Earth's surface, favoring the near infra-red technique. Thermal infrared instruments, on the contrary, reach a better global coverage, because the performance in the near infrared is reduced over the oceans owing to a low surface albedo. Near infra-red sounders can compensate for this by measuring in sun-glint, which will allow accurate measurements over the oceans, at the cost, however, of a lower measurement density. Overall, the sun-glint pointing near infrared instrument is the most promising concept of those tested. We show that the ability of satellite instruments to resolve fluxes at smaller temporal and spatial scales is also related to surface sensitivity. All the satellite instruments performed relatively well over the continents resulting mainly from the larger prior flux uncertainties over land than over the oceans. In addition, the surface networks are rather sparse over land increasing the additional benefit of satellite measurements there. Globally, challenging satellite instrument precisions are needed to compete with the current surface network (about 1ppm for weekly and 8°x10° averaged SCIAMACHY columns). Regionally, however, these requirements relax considerably, increasing to 5ppm for SCIAMACHY over tropical continents. This points not only to an interesting research area using SCIAMACHY data, but also to the fact that satellite requirements should not be quantified by only a single number. The applicability of our synthetic results to real satellite instruments is limited by rather crude representations of instrument and data retrieval related uncertainties. This should receive high priority in future work

Comparisons between SCIAMACHY atmospheric CO₂ retrieved using (FSI) WFM-DOAS to ground based FTIR data and the TM3 chemistry transport model

International audienceAtmospheric CO2 concentrations, retrieved from spectral measurements made in the near infrared (NIR) by the SCIAMACHY instrument, using Full Spectral Initiation Weighting Function Modified Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (FSI WFM-DOAS), are compared to ground based Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) data and to the output from a global chemistry-transport model. Analysis of the FSI WFM-DOAS retrievals with respect to the ground based FTIR instrument, located at Egbert, Canada, show good agreement with an average negative bias of approximately ?4.0% with a standard deviation of ~3.0%. This bias which exhibits an apparent seasonal trend, is of unknown origin, though slight differences between the averaging kernels of the instruments and the limited temporal coverage of the FTIR data may be the cause. The relative scatter of the retrieved vertical column densities is comparable to the spread of the FTIR measurements themselves. Normalizing the CO2 columns using the surface pressure does not affect the magnitude of this bias although it slightly increases the scatter of the FSI data. Comparisons of the FSI retrievals to the TM3 global chemistry-transport model, performed over four selected Northern Hemisphere scenes show good agreement. The correlation, between the time series of the SCIAMACHY and model monthly scene averages, are ~0.7 or greater, demonstrating the ability of SCIAMACHY to detect seasonal changes in the CO2 distribution. The amplitude of the seasonal cycle, peak to peak, observed by SCIAMACHY however, is overestimated by a factor of 2?3, which cannot be explained. The yearly means detected by SCIAMACHY are within 2% of those of the model with the mean difference between the CO2 distributions also approximately 2.0%. Additionally, analysis of the retrieved CO2 distributions reveals structure not evident in the model fields which correlates well with land classification type. From these comparisons, the overall precision and bias of the CO2 columns retrieved by the FSI algorithm are estimated to be close to 1.0% and <4.0% respectively

Carbon monoxide, methane and carbon dioxide columns retrieved from SCIAMACHY by WFM-DOAS: year 2003 initial data set

International audienceThe near-infrared nadir spectra measured by SCIAMACHY on-board ENVISAT contain information on the vertical columns of important atmospheric trace gases such as carbon monoxide (CO), methane (CH4), and carbon dioxide (CO2). The scientific algorithm WFM-DOAS has been used to retrieve this information. For CH4 and CO2 also column averaged mixing ratios (XCH4 and XCO2) have been determined by simultaneous measurements of the dry air mass. All available spectra of the year 2003 have been processed. We describe the algorithm versions used to generate the data (v0.4; for methane also v0.41) and show comparisons of monthly averaged data over land with global measurements (CO from MOPITT) and models (for CH4 and CO2). We show that elevated concentrations of CO resulting from biomass burning have been detected in reasonable agreement with MOPITT. The measured XCH4 is enhanced over India, south-east Asia, and central Africa in September/October 2003 in line with model simulations, where they result from surface sources of methane such as rice fields and wetlands. The CO2 measurements over the Northern Hemisphere show the lowest mixing ratios around July in qualitative agreement with model simulations indicating that the large scale pattern of CO2 uptake by the growing vegetation can be detected with SCIAMACHY. We also identified potential problems such as a too low inter-hemispheric gradient for CO, a time dependent bias of the methane columns on the order of a few percent, and a few percent too high CO2 over parts of the Sahara