title: Rising soil temperature in China and its potential ecological impact.
abstract: Global warming influences a series of ecological processes and ecosystems' stability. Although comprehensive studies have been done to investigate responses of various ecosystem processes to rising air temperatures, less is known about changes in soil temperatures and their impact on below-ground processes, particularly in deep layers. Herein, we used 50 y of temperature data (1962-2011) from 360 sites in China to assess spatio-temporal changes in soil temperatures from the surface to a depth of 3.20 m. We determined, apparently for the first time, that soil surface temperature increased 31% more than air temperature, potentially leading to more carbon release to the atmosphere than predicted. Annual mean surface temperature increased by 2.07-4.04 and 0.66-2.21 °C in northern and southern China, respectively, with the greatest in winter. Warming occurred as deep as 3.20 m. The soil temperature rise was predicted to have increased soil respiration by up to 28%, reinforcing climate warming and extending the potential growing season by up to 20 d across China. However, use of only air temperature to estimate soil temperature changes would underestimate those impacts. In conclusion, these results highlighted the importance of soil warming and of using soil temperature to assess and predict soil processes.
authors.affiliation: Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130102, China.|University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100049, China.|CSIRO Agriculture, GPO Box 1666, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: CSIRO Agriculture, GPO Box 1666, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: Enli
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130102, China.
authors.forename: Daowei
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: CSIRO Agriculture, GPO Box 1666, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: Zhongkui
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: School of Geographical Sciences, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China.
authors.forename: Zhengxiang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D057232:Global Warming; D006358:Hot Temperature; D012987:Soil
chemical_list: D012987:Soil