Journal
NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE
Volume 6, Issue 7, Pages 710-+Publisher
NATURE RESEARCH
DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE2942
Keywords
-
Funding
- NSF [EF-1065029]
- Macquarie University
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [RGPIN-2014-05882]
- USDA NIFA [2012-02355]
- National Science Foundation [IIA-1301789]
- National Science Foundation-EPSCoR [NSF-0701906]
- OpenDap
- Montana Tech of the University of Montana
- Stanford University
- Carnegie Institution Department of Global Ecology
- USDA-ARS
- US Department of Energy
- NSF Long Term Ecological Research Program (LTER) at the Konza Prairie Biological Station
- LTER programme at the Konza Prairie Biological Station [DEB-0823341]
- US Department of Energy [DE-AC02-05CH11231]
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Environmental Biology [1440484] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Emerging Frontiers [1064614, 1065029] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Grassland productivity is regulated by both temperature and the amount and timing of precipitation(1,2). Future climate change is therefore expected to influence grassland phenology and growth, with consequences for ecosystems and economies. However, the interacting effects of major shifts in temperature and precipitation on grasslands remain poorly understood and existing modelling approaches, although typically complex, do not extrapolate or generalize well and tend to disagree under future scenarios(3,4). Here we explore the potential responses of North American grasslands to climate change using a new, data-informed vegetation-hydrological model, a network of high-frequency ground observations across a wide range of grassland ecosystems and CMIP5 climate projections. Our results suggest widespread and consistent increases in vegetation fractional cover for the current range of grassland ecosystems throughout most of North America, despite the increase in aridity projected across most of our study area. Our analysis indicates a likely future shift of vegetation growth towards both earlier spring emergence and delayed autumn senescence, which would compensate for drought-induced reductions in summer fractional cover and productivity. However, because our model does not include the effects of rising atmospheric CO2 on photosynthesis and water use efficiency(5,6), climate change impacts on grassland productivity may be even larger than our results suggest. Increases in the productivity of North American grasslands over this coming century have implications for agriculture, carbon cycling and vegetation feedbacks to the atmosphere.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available