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2013 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

3. Impact of Climate Variability and Extremes on the Carbon Cycle of the Mediterranean Region

Authors : Dorothea Frank, Markus Reichstein, Franco Miglietta, Joao S. Pereira

Published in: Regional Assessment of Climate Change in the Mediterranean

Publisher: Springer Netherlands

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Abstract

The Mediterranean is getting drier and warmer, more frequent and intense summer temperature extremes have been observed. Heat waves and its often associa­ted droughts may strongly impact carbon fluxes and thus the carbon sequestration potential of ecosystems. Drought effects may last longer than the drought event itself due to delayed (ecosystem specific) recovery and/or secondary impacts such as altered mortality, pest and pathogen invasions or increased fire risk. Droughts are the main source of inter-annual variation in terrestrial carbon sequestration and its timing is a crucial factor owing to the strong seasonality of Mediterranean climate. The net carbon balance at ecosystem level to regional climate change is hard to predict since a panoply of interacting and partly compensating processes is affected. It is very likely that increased drought intensity and duration will affect primary productivity of the vegetation, but at the same time respiration processes are also reduced, hence compensating the effects on GPP. The Mediterranean can be considered as one of the “hot spot” areas for recent and projected climate change (Giorgi, 2006). As drought and heat waves are expected to become much more intense, longer lasting and more frequent, the carbon sequestration of Mediterranean ecosystems may be reduced by droughts, or even turning into net carbon sources to the atmosphere.

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previous chapter Vulnerability of Ecosystem Services in the Mediterranean Region to Climate Changes in Combination with Other Pressures
next chapter Climate Change Impacts on Typical Mediterranean Crops and Evaluation of Adaptation Strategies to Cope With
Footnotes
1
Typical impacts associated with extreme events are summarized in Table 2 “Typical impacts associated with extreme events” by Beniston et al. 2007.
 
2
The 2006 heat wave affected particularly the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Poland, France and Switzerland. The July 2006 anomalies were similar in magnitude to those of June and August 2003, but the discrepancy between minimum and maximum temperature anomalies was larger in 2006 compared to both June and August 2003 (Rebetez et al. 2009).
 
3
Study site in northeast Sardinia, Italy.
 
4
According to Granier et al. (1999), the relative extractable water REW is as followed:
REW  =  EW:EWM (with REW being unit less)
EW  =  extractable water  =  W–Wm; EWM  =  maximum extractable water  =  WF–Wm
(W  =  available soil water, Wm  =  minimum soil water, i.e. lower limit of water availability; WF  =  soil water content at field capacity; soil water content expressed in [mm H2O]).
 
5
Biscogniauxia mediterranea (De Not.) Kuntze. (syn. Hypoxylon mediterraneum (De Not.) Mill.)
 
6
Zaehle et al. (2007) pp 393f “The differences in land–atmosphere flux shown in Figure 7 in the Mediterranean result mainly from differences between the A2-HadCM3 run and the other three scenarios. On a regional scale, CO2 induced increases in water-use efficiency more than compensate for the effect of water limitation on photosynthesis in three out of four scenarios (A2-PCM2, A2-CSIRO2, and A2-CGCM2), but not in A2-HadCM3. In A2- HadCM3, drought stress leads to a decline in NPP in the last 25 scenario years, partly masked by substantial interannual variability.”
 
7
Future area burned is predicted to increase 478% for Portugal as a whole, which equates to an increase from 1.4 to 7.8% of the available burnable area burning annually. Fire occurrence will also see a dramatic increase (279%) for all of Portugal.
 
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Metadata
Title
Impact of Climate Variability and Extremes on the Carbon Cycle of the Mediterranean Region
Authors
Dorothea Frank
Markus Reichstein
Franco Miglietta
Joao S. Pereira
Copyright Year
2013
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Book
Regional Assessment of Climate Change in the Mediterranean

Print ISBN: 978-94-007-5771-4

Electronic ISBN: 978-94-007-5772-1

Copyright Year: 2013

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5772-1_3