Carbon uptake in Eurasian boreal forests dominates the high-latitude net ecosystem carbon budget.

Arctic-boreal landscapes are experiencing profound warming, along with changes in ecosystem moisture status and disturbance from fire. This region is of global importance in terms of carbon feedbacks to climate, yet the sign (sink or source) and magnitude of the Arctic-boreal carbon budget within recent years remains highly uncertain. Here, we provide new estimates of recent (2003-2015) vegetation gross primary productivity (GPP), ecosystem respiration (R ), net ecosystem CO exchange (NEE; R  - GPP), and terrestrial methane (CH ) emissions for the Arctic-boreal zone using a satellite data-driven process-model for northern ecosystems (TCFM-Arctic), calibrated and evaluated using measurements from >60 tower eddy covariance (EC) sites.

Pan-Arctic soil moisture control on tundra carbon sequestration and plant productivity.

Long-term atmospheric CO concentration records have suggested a reduction in the positive effect of warming on high-latitude carbon uptake since the 1990s. A variety of mechanisms have been proposed to explain the reduced net carbon sink of northern ecosystems with increased air temperature, including water stress on vegetation and increased respiration over recent decades. However, the lack of consistent long-term carbon flux and in situ soil moisture data has severely limited our ability to identify the mechanisms responsible for the recent reduced carbon sink strength.

Machine learning based estimation of field-scale daily, high resolution, multi-depth soil moisture for the Western and Midwestern United States.

Background: High-resolution soil moisture estimates are critical for planning water management and assessing environmental quality. measurements alone are too costly to support the spatial and temporal resolutions needed for water management. Recent efforts have combined calibration data with machine learning algorithms to fill the gap where high resolution moisture estimates are lacking at the field scale.

Respiratory loss during late-growing season determines the net carbon dioxide sink in northern permafrost regions.

Warming of northern high latitude regions (NHL, > 50 °N) has increased both photosynthesis and respiration which results in considerable uncertainty regarding the net carbon dioxide (CO) balance of NHL ecosystems. Using estimates constrained from atmospheric observations from 1980 to 2017, we find that the increasing trends of net CO uptake in the early-growing season are of similar magnitude across the tree cover gradient in the NHL. However, the trend of respiratory CO loss during late-growing season increases significantly with increasing tree cover, offsetting a larger fraction of photosynthetic CO uptake, and thus resulting in a slower rate of increasing annual net CO uptake in areas with higher tree cover, especially in central and southern boreal forest regions.

Statistical upscaling of ecosystem CO fluxes across the terrestrial tundra and boreal domain: Regional patterns and uncertainties.

The regional variability in tundra and boreal carbon dioxide (CO ) fluxes can be high, complicating efforts to quantify sink-source patterns across the entire region. Statistical models are increasingly used to predict (i.e.

Large loss of CO in winter observed across the northern permafrost region.

Recent warming in the Arctic, which has been amplified during the winter, greatly enhances microbial decomposition of soil organic matter and subsequent release of carbon dioxide (CO). However, the amount of CO released in winter is highly uncertain and has not been well represented by ecosystem models or by empirically-based estimates. Here we synthesize regional observations of CO flux from arctic and boreal soils to assess current and future winter carbon losses from the northern permafrost domain.

Increased high-latitude photosynthetic carbon gain offset by respiration carbon loss during an anomalous warm winter to spring transition.

Arctic and boreal ecosystems play an important role in the global carbon (C) budget, and whether they act as a future net C sink or source depends on climate and environmental change. Here, we used complementary in situ measurements, model simulations, and satellite observations to investigate the net carbon dioxide (CO ) seasonal cycle and its climatic and environmental controls across Alaska and northwestern Canada during the anomalously warm winter to spring conditions of 2015 and 2016 (relative to 2010-2014). In the warm spring, we found that photosynthesis was enhanced more than respiration, leading to greater CO uptake.

Global Satellite Retrievals of the Near-Surface Atmospheric Vapor Pressure Deficit from AMSR-E and AMSR2.

Near-surface atmospheric Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD) is a key environmental variable affecting vegetation water stress, evapotranspiration, and atmospheric moisture demand. Although VPD is readily derived from in situ standard weather station measurements, more spatially continuous global observations for regional monitoring of VPD are lacking. Here, we document a new method to estimate daily (both a.

Cold season emissions dominate the Arctic tundra methane budget.

Arctic terrestrial ecosystems are major global sources of methane (CH4); hence, it is important to understand the seasonal and climatic controls on CH4 emissions from these systems. Here, we report year-round CH4 emissions from Alaskan Arctic tundra eddy flux sites and regional fluxes derived from aircraft data. We find that emissions during the cold season (September to May) account for ≥ 50% of the annual CH4 flux, with the highest emissions from noninundated upland tundra.