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Future changes of the terrestrial ecosystem based on a dynamic vegetation model driven with RCP8.5 climate projections from 19 GCMs

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Abstract

Future changes of terrestrial ecosystems due to changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration and climate are subject to a large degree of uncertainty, especially for vegetation in the Tropics. Here, we evaluate the natural vegetation response to projected future changes using an improved version of a dynamic vegetation model (CLM-CN-DV) driven with climate change projections from 19 global climate models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). The simulated equilibrium vegetation distribution under historical climate (1981–2000) has been compared with that under the projected future climate (2081–2100) scenario for Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 (RCP8.5) to qualitatively assess how natural potential vegetation might change in the future. With one outlier excluded, the ensemble average of vegetation changes corresponding to climates of 18 GCMs shows a poleward shift of forests in northern Eurasia and North America, which is consistent with findings from previous studies. It also shows a general “upgrade” of vegetation type in the Tropics and most of the temperate zones, in the form of deciduous trees and shrubs taking over C3 grass in Europe and broadleaf deciduous trees taking over C4 grasses in Central Africa and the Amazon. LAI and NPP are projected to increase in the high latitudes, southeastern Asia, southeastern North America, and Central Africa. This results from CO2 fertilization, enhanced water use efficiency, and in the extra-tropics warming. However, both LAI and NPP are projected to decrease in the Amazon due to drought. The competing impacts of climate change and CO2 fertilization lead to large uncertainties in the projection of future vegetation changes in the Tropics.

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Acknowledgments

Funding support for this study was provided by the National Science Foundation (AGS 1049017 & AGS 1063986), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41205084) and the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD). We thank Gordon B. Bonan and Samuel Levis for helping with the model development. The World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, is acknowledged. We also thank the climate modeling groups listed in Table 1 of this paper for producing and making their model output available. For CMIP the US Department of Energy’s Program for Climate Diagnosis and Intercomparison provides coordinating support and led development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering & Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    Miao Yu, Guiling Wang, Dana Parr & Kazi Farzan Ahmed

  2. Key Laboratory of Meteorological Disaster of Ministry of Education & International Joint Laboratory on Climate and Environment Change (ILCEC), Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China

    Miao Yu

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  1. Miao Yu
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Correspondence to Guiling Wang.

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Yu, M., Wang, G., Parr, D. et al. Future changes of the terrestrial ecosystem based on a dynamic vegetation model driven with RCP8.5 climate projections from 19 GCMs. Climatic Change 127, 257–271 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-014-1249-2

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