Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 116, Issue 28, Pages 14071-14076Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1904747116
Keywords
climate change; extreme events; functional diversity; plant hydraulics; vegetation model
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Funding
- David and Lucille Packard Foundation
- University of Utah Global Change and Sustainability Center
- NSF [1714972, 1802880]
- USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Agricultural and Food Research Initiative Competitive Program, Ecosystem Services and Agro-ecosystem Management [2018-67019-27850]
- USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Postdoctoral Research Fellowship [2018-67012-28020]
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The fluxes of energy, water, and carbon from terrestrial ecosystems influence the atmosphere. Land-atmosphere feedbacks can intensify extreme climate events like severe droughts and heat-waves because low soil moisture decreases both evaporation and plant transpiration and increases local temperature. Here, we combine data from a network of temperate and boreal eddy covariance towers, satellite data, plant trait datasets, and a mechanistic vegetation model to diagnose the controls of soil moisture feedbacks to drought. We find that climate and plant functional traits, particularly those related to maximum leaf gas exchange rate and water transport through the plant hydraulic continuum, jointly affect drought intensification. Our results reveal that plant physiological traits directly affect drought intensification and indicate that inclusion of plant hydraulic transport mechanisms in models may be critical for accurately simulating land-atmosphere feedbacks and climate extremes under climate change.
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