The response of ecosystem water-use efficiency to rising atmospheric CO2concentrations: sensitivity and large-scale biogeochemical implications.
Ecosystem water-use efficiency (WUE) is an important metric linking the global land carbon and water cycles. Eddy covariance-based estimates of WUE in temperate/boreal forests have recently been found to show a strong and unexpected increase over the 1992-2010 period, which has been attributed to the effects of rising atmospheric CO2concentrations on plant physiology. To test this hypothesis, we forced the observed trend in the process-based land surface model JSBACH by increasing the sensitivity of stomatal conductance (gs) to atmospheric CO2concentration. We compared the simulated continental discharge, evapotranspiration (ET), and the seasonal CO2exchange with observations across the extratropical northern hemisphere. The increased simulated WUE led to substantial changes in surface hydrology at the continental scale, including a significant decrease in ET and a significant increase in continental runoff, both of which are inconsistent with large-scale observations. The simulated seasonal amplitude of atmospheric CO2decreased over time, in contrast to the observed upward trend across ground-based measurement sites. Our results provide strong indications that the recent, large-scale WUE trend is considerably smaller than that estimated for these forest ecosystems. They emphasize the decreasing CO2sensitivity of WUE with increasing scale, which affects the physiological interpretation of changes in ecosystem WUE.
Department of Biogeochemical Integration, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, 07745, Jena, Germany.|International Max Planck Research School for Global Biogeochemical Cycles (IMPRS-gBGC), 07745, Jena, Germany.
Jürgen
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4947-7067
J
Knauer
Department of Biogeochemical Integration, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, 07745, Jena, Germany.|Michael-Stifel-Center Jena for Data-Driven and Simulation Science, 07745, Jena, Germany.
Sönke
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5602-7956
S
Zaehle
Department of Biogeochemical Integration, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, 07745, Jena, Germany.|Michael-Stifel-Center Jena for Data-Driven and Simulation Science, 07745, Jena, Germany.
Markus
M
Reichstein
Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Richmond, NSW, 2753, Australia.
Belinda E
BE
Medlyn
Department of Biogeochemical Integration, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, 07745, Jena, Germany.|Remote Sensing Research Group, Department of Geodesy and Geoinformation, Technische Universität Wien, 1040, Vienna, Austria.
Matthias
M
Forkel
Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, 20146, Hamburg, Germany.
Stefan
S
Hagemann
Department of Ecosystem Physiology, University of Freiburg, 79085, Freiburg, Germany.
Christiane
C
Werner
D002245:Carbon Dioxide / Q000378:metabolism*; D017753:Ecosystem; D018515:Plant Leaves / Q000502:physiology; D012621:Seasons; D013997:Time Factors; D055548:Vapor Pressure; D014867:Water / Q000378:metabolism*
D014867:Water; D002245:Carbon Dioxide
continental discharge; evapotranspiration; leaf to ecosystem scaling; rising atmospheric CO2 concentration; seasonal CO2 exchange; water-use efficiency (WUE)