The importance of interacting climate modes on Australia’s contribution to global carbon cycle extremes
Cleverly, Jamie, Eamus, Derek, Luo, Qunying, Restrepo Coupe, Natalia, Kljun, Natascha, Ma, Xuanlong, Ewenz, Cacilia, Li, Longhui, Yu, Qiang, and Huete, Alfredo (2016) The importance of interacting climate modes on Australia’s contribution to global carbon cycle extremes. Scientific Reports, 6. 23113.
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Abstract
The global carbon cycle is highly sensitive to climate-driven fluctuations of precipitation, especially in the Southern Hemisphere. This was clearly manifested by a 20% increase of the global terrestrial C sink in 2011 during the strongest sustained La Niña since 1917. However, inconsistencies exist between El Niño/La Niña (ENSO) cycles and precipitation in the historical record; for example, significant ENSO–precipitation correlations were present in only 31% of the last 100 years, and often absent in wet years. To resolve these inconsistencies, we used an advanced temporal scaling method for identifying interactions amongst three key climate modes (El Niño, the Indian Ocean dipole, and the southern annular mode). When these climate modes synchronised (1999–2012), drought and extreme precipitation were observed across Australia. The interaction amongst these climate modes, more than the effect of any single mode, was associated with large fluctuations in precipitation and productivity. The long-term exposure of vegetation to this arid environment has favoured a resilient flora capable of large fluctuations in photosynthetic productivity and explains why Australia was a major contributor not only to the 2011 global C sink anomaly but also to global reductions in photosynthetic C uptake during the previous decade of drought.
| Item ID: | 73503 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 2045-2322 |
| Copyright Information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Date Deposited: | 07 Jun 2022 02:35 |
| FoR Codes: | 37 EARTH SCIENCES > 3701 Atmospheric sciences > 370108 Meteorology @ 40% 41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4102 Ecological applications > 410203 Ecosystem function @ 60% |
| SEO Codes: | 19 ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY, CLIMATE CHANGE AND NATURAL HAZARDS > 1904 Natural hazards > 190401 Climatological hazards (e.g. extreme temperatures, drought and wildfires) @ 50% 18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1806 Terrestrial systems and management > 180601 Assessment and management of terrestrial ecosystems @ 50% |
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