Abstract
Drought, a recurring phenomenon with major impacts on both human and natural systems, is the most widespread climatic extreme that negatively affects the land carbon sink. Although twentieth-century trends in drought regimes are ambiguous, across many regions more frequent and severe droughts are expected in the twenty-first century. Recovery time - how long an ecosystem requires to revert to its pre-drought functional state - is a critical metric of drought impact. Yet the factors influencing drought recovery and its spatiotemporal patterns at the global scale are largely unknown. Here we analyse three independent datasets of gross primary productivity and show that, across diverse ecosystems, drought recovery times are strongly associated with climate and carbon cycle dynamics, with biodiversity and CO 2 fertilization as secondary factors. Our analysis also provides two key insights into the spatiotemporal patterns of drought recovery time: first, that recovery is longest in the tropics and high northern latitudes (both vulnerable areas of Earth's climate system) and second, that drought impacts (assessed using the area of ecosystems actively recovering and time to recovery) have increased over the twentieth century. If droughts become more frequent, as expected, the time between droughts may become shorter than drought recovery time, leading to permanently damaged ecosystems and widespread degradation of the land carbon sink.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 202-205 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| Journal | Nature |
| Volume | 548 |
| Issue number | 7666 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 9 2017 |
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ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Medicine(all)
- General
Cite this
Global patterns of drought recovery. / Schwalm, Christopher R; Anderegg, William R.L.; Michalak, Anna M.; Fisher, Joshua B.; Biondi, Franco; Koch, George W; Litvak, Marcy; Ogle, Kiona; Shaw, John D.; Wolf, Adam; Huntzinger, Deborah N; Schaefer, Kevin; Cook, Robert; Wei, Yaxing; Fang, Yuanyuan; Hayes, Daniel; Huang, Maoyi; Jain, Atul; Tian, Hanqin.
In: Nature, Vol. 548, No. 7666, 09.08.2017, p. 202-205.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Global patterns of drought recovery
AU - Schwalm, Christopher R
AU - Anderegg, William R.L.
AU - Michalak, Anna M.
AU - Fisher, Joshua B.
AU - Biondi, Franco
AU - Koch, George W
AU - Litvak, Marcy
AU - Ogle, Kiona
AU - Shaw, John D.
AU - Wolf, Adam
AU - Huntzinger, Deborah N
AU - Schaefer, Kevin
AU - Cook, Robert
AU - Wei, Yaxing
AU - Fang, Yuanyuan
AU - Hayes, Daniel
AU - Huang, Maoyi
AU - Jain, Atul
AU - Tian, Hanqin
PY - 2017/8/9
Y1 - 2017/8/9
N2 - Drought, a recurring phenomenon with major impacts on both human and natural systems, is the most widespread climatic extreme that negatively affects the land carbon sink. Although twentieth-century trends in drought regimes are ambiguous, across many regions more frequent and severe droughts are expected in the twenty-first century. Recovery time - how long an ecosystem requires to revert to its pre-drought functional state - is a critical metric of drought impact. Yet the factors influencing drought recovery and its spatiotemporal patterns at the global scale are largely unknown. Here we analyse three independent datasets of gross primary productivity and show that, across diverse ecosystems, drought recovery times are strongly associated with climate and carbon cycle dynamics, with biodiversity and CO 2 fertilization as secondary factors. Our analysis also provides two key insights into the spatiotemporal patterns of drought recovery time: first, that recovery is longest in the tropics and high northern latitudes (both vulnerable areas of Earth's climate system) and second, that drought impacts (assessed using the area of ecosystems actively recovering and time to recovery) have increased over the twentieth century. If droughts become more frequent, as expected, the time between droughts may become shorter than drought recovery time, leading to permanently damaged ecosystems and widespread degradation of the land carbon sink.
AB - Drought, a recurring phenomenon with major impacts on both human and natural systems, is the most widespread climatic extreme that negatively affects the land carbon sink. Although twentieth-century trends in drought regimes are ambiguous, across many regions more frequent and severe droughts are expected in the twenty-first century. Recovery time - how long an ecosystem requires to revert to its pre-drought functional state - is a critical metric of drought impact. Yet the factors influencing drought recovery and its spatiotemporal patterns at the global scale are largely unknown. Here we analyse three independent datasets of gross primary productivity and show that, across diverse ecosystems, drought recovery times are strongly associated with climate and carbon cycle dynamics, with biodiversity and CO 2 fertilization as secondary factors. Our analysis also provides two key insights into the spatiotemporal patterns of drought recovery time: first, that recovery is longest in the tropics and high northern latitudes (both vulnerable areas of Earth's climate system) and second, that drought impacts (assessed using the area of ecosystems actively recovering and time to recovery) have increased over the twentieth century. If droughts become more frequent, as expected, the time between droughts may become shorter than drought recovery time, leading to permanently damaged ecosystems and widespread degradation of the land carbon sink.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85027349887&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1038/nature23021
DO - 10.1038/nature23021
M3 - Article
VL - 548
SP - 202
EP - 205
JO - Nature Cell Biology
JF - Nature Cell Biology
SN - 1465-7392
IS - 7666
ER -