Congsheng Fu

Hydraulic redistribution affects modeled carbon cycling via soil microbial activity and suppressed fire

Hydraulic redistribution (HR) of water from moist to drier soils, through plant roots, occurs world-wide in seasonally dry ecosystems. Although the influence of HR on landscape hydrology and plant water use has been amply demonstrated, HRs effects on microbe-controlled processes sensitive to soil moisture, including carbon and nutrient cycling at ecosystem scales, remain difficult to observe in the field and have not been integrated into a predictive framework. We incorporated a representation of HR into the Community Land Model (CLM4.5) and found the new model improved predictions of water, energy, and system-scale carbon fluxes observed by eddy covariance at four seasonally dry yet ecologically diverse temperate and tropical AmeriFlux sites. Modeled plant productivity and microbial activities were differentially stimulated by upward HR, resulting at times in increased plant demand outstripping increased nutrient supply. Modeled plant productivity and microbial activities were diminished by downward HR. Overall, inclusion of HR tended to increase modeled annual ecosystem uptake of CO2 (or reduce annual CO2 release to the atmosphere). Moreover, engagement of CLM4.5s ground-truthed fire module indicated that though HR increased modeled fuel load at all four sites, upward HR also moistened surface soil and hydrated vegetation sufficiently to limit the modeled spread of dry season fire and concomitant very large CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. Historically, fire has been a dominant ecological force in many seasonally dry ecosystems, and intensification of soil drought and altered precipitation regimes are expected for seasonally dry ecosystems in the future. HR may play an increasingly important role mitigating development of extreme soil water potential gradients and associated limitations on plant and soil microbial activities, and may inhibit the spread of fire in seasonally dry ecosystems.

Response of Surface Temperature to Afforestation in the Kubuqi Desert, Inner Mongolia

This is the data used in the manuscript“Response of surface temperature to afforestation in the Kubuqi Desert, Inner Mongolia” by Wang et al. for Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheresxa0[MS#2017JD027522].

Influences of Root Hydraulic Redistribution on N2O Emissions at AmeriFlux Sites

It has long been suspected that root hydraulic redistribution (HR) affects the carbon and nitrogen cycles. Nitrous oxide (N2O) is an important greenhouse gas and is the primary stratospheric ozone-depleting substance. To our knowledge, the influences of HR on N2O emissions have not been investigated. Here we use the HR schemes of Ryel et al. and Amenu and Kumar incorporated into CLM4.5 to examine N2O emissions at five AmeriFlux sites. The results show that HR reduced N2O emissions by 28–92% in the four natural ecosystems experiencing a dry season, whereas it had a very limited effect on the Corn Belt site that has strong emissions but with no distinct dry season. We hypothesize that N2O emissions in ecosystems with a distinct dry season are likely overestimated by CENTURY-based Earth system models. Plain Language Summary The findings of this study suggest that hydraulic redistribution (HR) may play an important role in N2O emissions from agricultural regions that have a clearly defined dry season. For example, the expansive corn-growing regions of China are all located in the monsoon area with a distinct dry season. We hypothesize that the HR mechanism acts to significantly reduce N2O emissions in these regions. HR may also play an important role in limiting N2O emissions in the Amazonian regions with a tropical monsoon climate, where forests have been converted to agricultural use.

A Meta-Analysis of Open-Path Eddy Covariance Observations of Apparent CO2 Flux in Cold Conditions in FLUXNET

AbstractOpen-path eddy covariance systems are widely used for measuring the CO2 flux between land and atmosphere. A common problem is that they often yield negative fluxes or physiologically unreasonable CO2 uptake fluxes in the nongrowing season under cold conditions. In this study, a meta-analysis was performed on the eddy flux data from 64 FLUXNET sites and the relationship between the observed CO2 flux and the sensible heat flux was analyzed. In theory, these two fluxes should be independent of each other in cold conditions (air temperature lower than 0°C) when photosynthesis is suppressed. However, the results show that a significant and negative linear relationship existed between these two fluxes at 37 of the sites. The mean linear slope value is −0.008 ± 0.001 µmol m−2 s−1 per W m−2 among the 64 sites analyzed. The slope value was not significantly different among the three gas analyzer models (LI-7500, LI-7500A, IRGASON/EC150) used at these sites, indicating that self-heating may not be the only ...