Increasing meteorological drought under climate change reduces terrestrial ecosystem productivity and carbon storage

Plants on land absorb about 30% of the CO2 produced by human activities each year, meaning they have mitigated, to some degree, the global warming impacts of human emissions. However, plants are also vulnerable to climate change. While increases in CO2 may have a "fertilizing effect" and i...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Zeng, Zhaoqi, Wu, Wenxiang|||0000-0002-0207-2847, Li, Yamei, Huang, Chong, Zhang, Xueqin|||0000-0003-3049-6492, Peñuelas, Josep|||0000-0002-7215-0150, Zhang, Yao|||0000-0002-7468-2409, Gentine, Pierre|||0000-0002-0845-8345, Li, Zhaolei, Wang, Xiaoyue|||0000-0002-9950-2259, Huang, Han, Ren, Xinshuai, Ge, Quansheng|||0000-0001-8712-8565
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Institución:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:284222
Acceso en línea:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/284222
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1016/j.oneear.2023.09.007
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Meteorological drought
Vegetation productivity
CMIP6
Global warming
Descripción
Sumario:Plants on land absorb about 30% of the CO2 produced by human activities each year, meaning they have mitigated, to some degree, the global warming impacts of human emissions. However, plants are also vulnerable to climate change. While increases in CO2 may have a "fertilizing effect" and increase plant growth and therefore CO2 absorption, other impacts of climate change, such as increasingly frequent and severe droughts, will harm plant growth. In this work, we show that, if the future is powered by fossil-fueled development and CO2 emissions continue to increase, the end of the century will see a 3.5-fold increase in the loss of vegetation productivity due to droughts, especially in cropland. Our results suggest that the "buffering" impact of plants on human CO2 emissions cannot be counted on in an increasingly warm planet and emphasize the importance of greenhouse gas mitigation for vegetation and cropland productivity.