Altered trends in carbon uptake in China's terrestrial ecosystems under the enhanced summer monsoon and warming hiatus

Honglin He; Shaoqiang Wang; Li Zhang; Junbang Wang; Xiaoli Ren; Lei Zhou; Shilong Piao; Hao Yan; Weimin Ju; Fengxue Gu; Shiyong Yu; Yuanhe Yang; Miaomiao Wang; Zhongen Niu; Rong Ge; Huimin Yan; Mei Huang; Guoyi Zhou; Yongfei Bai; Zongqiang Xie; Zhiyao Tang; Bingfang Wu; Leiming Zhang; Nianpeng He; Qiufeng Wang; Guirui Yu

doi:10.1093/nsr/nwz021

Altered trends in carbon uptake in China's terrestrial ecosystems under the enhanced summer monsoon and warming hiatus

Natl Sci Rev. 2019 May;6(3):505-514. doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwz021. Epub 2019 Feb 17.

Authors

Honglin He^{1

2}, Shaoqiang Wang^{1

2}, Li Zhang^{1

2}, Junbang Wang¹, Xiaoli Ren¹, Lei Zhou¹, Shilong Piao^{3

4}, Hao Yan⁵, Weimin Ju⁶, Fengxue Gu⁷, Shiyong Yu⁸, Yuanhe Yang^{9

10}, Miaomiao Wang^{1

10}, Zhongen Niu^{1

10}, Rong Ge^{1

10}, Huimin Yan^{1

2}, Mei Huang¹, Guoyi Zhou¹¹, Yongfei Bai⁹, Zongqiang Xie⁹, Zhiyao Tang¹², Bingfang Wu¹³, Leiming Zhang^{1

2}, Nianpeng He^{1

2}, Qiufeng Wang^{1

2}, Guirui Yu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Synthesis Research Center of China's Ecosystem Research Network, Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
² College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
³ Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environment Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Alpine Ecology and Biodiversity, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
⁵ National Meteorological Center, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing 100081, China.
⁶ International Institute for Earth System Science and Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Geographic Information Science and Technology, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China.
⁷ Key Laboratory of Dryland Agriculture, MOA, Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China.
⁸ School of Geography, Geomatics, and Planning, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou 221116, China.
⁹ State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China.
¹⁰ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
¹¹ Key Laboratory of Vegetation Restoration and Management of Degraded Ecosystems, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510650, China.
¹² Department of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Science, Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
¹³ Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100094, China.

Abstract

The carbon budgets in terrestrial ecosystems in China are strongly coupled with climate changes. Over the past decade, China has experienced dramatic climate changes characterized by enhanced summer monsoon and decelerated warming. However, the changes in the trends of terrestrial net ecosystem production (NEP) in China under climate changes are not well documented. Here, we used three ecosystem models to simulate the spatiotemporal variations in China's NEP during 1982-2010 and quantify the contribution of the strengthened summer monsoon and warming hiatus to the NEP variations in four distinct climatic regions of the country. Our results revealed a decadal-scale shift in NEP from a downtrend of -5.95 Tg C/yr² (reduced sink) during 1982-2000 to an uptrend of 14.22 Tg C/yr² (enhanced sink) during 2000-10. This shift was essentially induced by the strengthened summer monsoon, which stimulated carbon uptake, and the warming hiatus, which lessened the decrease in the NEP trend. Compared to the contribution of 56.3% by the climate effect, atmospheric CO₂ concentration and nitrogen deposition had relatively small contributions (8.6 and 11.3%, respectively) to the shift. In conclusion, within the context of the global-warming hiatus, the strengthening of the summer monsoon is a critical climate factor that enhances carbon uptake in China due to the asymmetric response of photosynthesis and respiration. Our study not only revealed the shift in ecosystem carbon sequestration in China in recent decades, but also provides some insight for understanding ecosystem carbon dynamics in other monsoonal areas.

Keywords: Asian summer monsoon; biogeochemical modeling; climate change; ecosystem carbon dynamics; warming hiatus.