Drought impacts on terrestrial primary production underestimated by satellite monitoring
Stocker, Benjamin (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Zscheischler, Jakob (Universität Bern. Centre for Climate Change Research)
Keenan, Trevor F. (University of California. Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management)
Prentice, Iain Colin (University College London. Department of Life Sciences)
Seneviratne, Sonia I. (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich. Institut für Atmosphären-und Klimawissenschaft)
Peñuelas, Josep (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)

Date:	2019
Abstract:	Satellite retrievals of information about the Earth's surface are widely used to monitor global terrestrial photosynthesis and primary production and to examine the ecological impacts of droughts. Methods for estimating photosynthesis from space commonly combine information on vegetation greenness, incoming radiation, temperature and atmospheric demand for water (vapour-pressure deficit), but do not account for the direct effects of low soil moisture. They instead rely on vapour-pressure deficit as a proxy for dryness, despite widespread evidence that soil moisture deficits have a direct impact on vegetation, independent of vapour-pressure deficit. Here, we use a globally distributed measurement network to assess the effect of soil moisture on photosynthesis, and identify a common bias in an ensemble of satellite-based estimates of photosynthesis that is governed by the magnitude of soil moisture effects on photosynthetic light-use efficiency. We develop methods to account for the influence of soil moisture and estimate that soil moisture effects reduce global annual photosynthesis by ~15%, increase interannual variability by more than 100% across 25% of the global vegetated land surface, and amplify the impacts of extreme events on primary production. These results demonstrate the importance of soil moisture effects for monitoring carbon-cycle variability and drought impacts on vegetation productivity from space.
Grants:	European Commission 701329 European Commission 617518 European Commission 610028 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad CGL2016-79835-P Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2017/SGR-1005
Rights:	Tots els drets reservats.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió acceptada per publicar
Subject:	Biogeochemistry ; Carbon cycle ; Ecology
Published in:	Nature geoscience, Vol. 12, issue 4 (April 2019) , p. 264-270, ISSN 1752-0894

DOI: 10.1038/s41561-019-0318-6

Postprint 38 p, 3.4 MB

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