Source Themes

The impacts of plant physiological responses to rising CO2 on humidity-based extreme heat

Plant physiological responses to rising CO2 have been shown to contribute to increasing extreme heat; but their impacts on co-occurrences of high heat and humidity have not been assessed previously. Since heat stress depends on both, reductions in …

Changes in the Regional Water Cycle and Their Impact on Societies

Changes in blue water, which is the total supply of fresh water available for human extraction over land, are quite closely related to changes in runoff or equivalently precipitation minus evaporation, P?E{\$}{\$} P-E {\$}{\$}. This article examines …

Land Processes Can Substantially Impact the Mean Climate State

Terrestrial processes influence the atmosphere by controlling land-to-atmosphere fluxes of energy, water, and carbon. Prior research has demonstrated that parameter uncertainty drives uncertainty in land surface fluxes. However, the influence of land …

Different model assumptions about plant hydraulics and photosynthetic temperature acclimation yield diverging implications for tropical forest resilience

Tropical forest photosynthesis can decline at high temperatures due to (1) biochemical responses to increasing temperature and (2) stomatal responses to increasing vapor pres- sure deficit (VPD), which is associated with increasing temperature. It is …

Reimagining Earth in the Earth System

Terrestrial, aquatic, and marine ecosystems regulate climate at local to global scales through exchanges of energy and matter with the atmosphere and assist with climate change mitigation through nature-based climate solutions. Climate science is no …

Sensitive response of atmospheric oxidative capacity to the uncertainty in the emissions of nitric oxide (NO) from soils in Amazonia

Soils are a major source of nitrogen oxides, which in the atmosphere help govern its oxidative capacity. Thus the response of soil nitric oxide (NO) emissions to forcings such as warming or forest loss has a meaningful impact on global atmospheric …

Response of tropical rainfall to reduced evapotranspiration depends on continental extent

Future projections of precipitation change over tropical land are often enhanced by vegetation responses to CO$_2$ forcing in Earth System Models. Projected decreases in rainfall over the Amazon basin and increases over the Maritime Continent are …

Plant Physiology Increases the Magnitude and Spread of the Transient Climate Response to CO$_2$ in CMIP6 Earth System Models

Increasing concentrations of CO$_2$ in the atmosphere influence climate both through CO$_2$’s role as a greenhouse gas and through its impact on plants. Plants respond to atmospheric CO$_2$ concentrations in several ways that can alter surface energy …