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Contrasting response of European forest and grassland energy exchange to heatwaves

Nature Geoscience volume 3, pages 722–727 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

Recent European heatwaves have raised interest in the impact of land cover conditions on temperature extremes. At present, it is believed that such extremes are enhanced by stronger surface heating of the atmosphere, when soil moisture content is below average. However, the impact of land cover on the exchange of water and energy and the interaction of this exchange with the soil water balance during heatwaves is largely unknown. Here we analyse observations from an extensive network of flux towers in Europe that reveal a difference between the temporal responses of forest and grassland ecosystems during heatwaves. We find that initially, surface heating is twice as high over forest than over grassland. Over grass, heating is suppressed by increased evaporation in response to increased solar radiation and temperature. Ultimately, however, this process accelerates soil moisture depletion and induces a critical shift in the regional climate system that leads to increased heating. We propose that this mechanism may explain the extreme temperatures in August 2003. We conclude that the conservative water use of forest contributes to increased temperatures in the short term, but mitigates the impact of the most extreme heat and/or long-lasting events.

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Figure 1: Radiation and energy exchange over forest and grassland.
Figure 2: Energy exchanges at the peak of the July 2006 heatwave for neighbouring flux towers over forest and grassland.
Figure 3: Impact of land cover on local LST anomalies during heatwaves.
Figure 4: Conceptual model for flux evolution over grassland and forest during drydown.
Figure 5: Screen-level daily maximum temperature anomaly evolution and distribution during heatwaves.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the members of the FLUXNET community (http://www.fluxdata.org/DataInfo/default.aspx) and in particular the CarboEuropeIP network for their efforts in acquiring the eddy covariance data. We acknowledge the financial support to the eddy covariance data harmonization provided by CarboEuropeIP, FAO-GTOS-TCO, iLEAPS, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, National Science Foundation, University of Tuscia, Université Laval and Environment Canada and US Department of Energy and the database development and technical support from Berkeley Water Center, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Microsoft Research eScience, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, University of California - Berkeley and University of Virginia. A.J.T. acknowledges financial support from Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) through Rubicon grant 825.07.009, ETH Zurich and the Swiss National Science Foundation through the NFP61 DROUGHT-CH project. We further acknowledge support from the European Commission Project CARBO-Extreme (FP7-ENV-2008-1-226701), the CCES MAIOLICA project and NCCR-Climate programme.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland

    Adriaan J. Teuling & Sonia I. Seneviratne

  2. Hydrology and Quantitative Water Management Group, Wageningen University, 6709PA Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Adriaan J. Teuling

  3. Climate Science, Climate Analysis, MeteoSwiss, 8044 Zurich, Switzerland

    Reto Stöckli

  4. Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, 07745 Jena, Germany

    Markus Reichstein

  5. Alterra, 6708PB Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Eddy Moors

  6. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, LSCE, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France

    Philippe Ciais & Sebastiaan Luyssaert

  7. KNMI, 3730AE De Bilt, The Netherlands

    Bart van den Hurk

  8. Agroscope ART, 8046 Zurich, Switzerland

    Christof Ammann

  9. Institute of Hydrology and Meteorology, TU Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany

    Christian Bernhofer & Thomas Grünwald

  10. Risø National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy, Technical University of Denmark, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark

    Ebba Dellwik

  11. IASMA Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione E. Mach, Environment and Natural Resources Area, 38040 Trento, Italy

    Damiano Gianelle & Matteo Sottocornola

  12. Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, 2610 Wilrijk, Belgium

    Bert Gielen

  13. INRA, Grassland Ecosystem Research (UREP), 63100 Clermont-Ferrand, France

    Katja Klumpp

  14. Forest Services and Agency for the Environment, 39100 Bolzano, Italy

    Leonardo Montagnani

  15. Faculty of Sciences and Technology, University of Bozen-Bolzano, 39100 Bolzano, Italy

    Leonardo Montagnani

  16. Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liège, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium

    Christine Moureaux

  17. Institute of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria

    Georg Wohlfahrt

Authors
  1. Adriaan J. Teuling
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Contributions

A.J.T. and S.I.S. provided the framework and conceived the manuscript. A.J.T. carried out all analyses. All authors collaborated in the discussion of the results and writing.

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Correspondence to Adriaan J. Teuling or Sonia I. Seneviratne.

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Teuling, A., Seneviratne, S., Stöckli, R. et al. Contrasting response of European forest and grassland energy exchange to heatwaves. Nature Geosci 3, 722–727 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo950

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