TY - GEN A1 - Rolinski, Susanne A1 - Rammig, Anja A1 - Walz, Ariane A1 - von Bloh, Werner A1 - van Oijen, M. A1 - Thonicke, Kirsten T1 - A probabilistic risk assessment for the vulnerability of the European carbon cycle to weather extremes BT - The ecosystem perspective T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch naturwissenschaftliche Reihe (487) N2 - Extreme weather events are likely to occur more often under climate change and the resulting effects on ecosystems could lead to a further acceleration of climate change. But not all extreme weather events lead to extreme ecosystem response. Here, we focus on hazardous ecosystem behaviour and identify coinciding weather conditions. We use a simple probabilistic risk assessment based on time series of ecosystem behaviour and climate conditions. Given the risk assessment terminology, vulnerability and risk for the previously defined hazard are estimated on the basis of observed hazardous ecosystem behaviour. We apply this approach to extreme responses of terrestrial ecosystems to drought, defining the hazard as a negative net biome productivity over a 12-month period. We show an application for two selected sites using data for 1981-2010 and then apply the method to the pan-European scale for the same period, based on numerical modelling results (LPJmL for ecosystem behaviour; ERA-Interim data for climate). Our site-specific results demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method, using the SPEI to describe the climate condition. The site in Spain provides an example of vulnerability to drought because the expected value of the SPEI is 0.4 lower for hazardous than for non-hazardous ecosystem behaviour. In northern Germany, on the contrary, the site is not vulnerable to drought because the SPEI expectation values imply wetter conditions in the hazard case than in the non-hazard case. At the pan-European scale, ecosystem vulnerability to drought is calculated in the Mediterranean and temperate region, whereas Scandinavian ecosystems are vulnerable under conditions without water shortages. These first model- based applications indicate the conceptual advantages of the proposed method by focusing on the identification of critical weather conditions for which we observe hazardous ecosystem behaviour in the analysed data set. Application of the method to empirical time series and to future climate would be important next steps to test the approach. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 487 KW - global vegetation model KW - climate extremes KW - fire emissions KW - drought KW - forest KW - productivity KW - reduction KW - events KW - assimilation KW - uncertainty Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-407999 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 487 SP - 1813 EP - 1831 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Langerwisch, F. A1 - Walz, Ariane A1 - Rammig, A. A1 - Tietjen, B. A1 - Thonicke, Kirsten A1 - Cramer, Wolfgang T1 - Climate change increases riverine carbon outgassing, while export to the ocean remains uncertain T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Any regular interaction of land and river during flooding affects carbon pools within the terrestrial system, riverine carbon and carbon exported from the system. In the Amazon basin carbon fluxes are considerably influenced by annual flooding, during which terrigenous organic material is imported to the river. The Amazon basin therefore represents an excellent example of a tightly coupled terrestrial-riverine system. The processes of generation, conversion and transport of organic carbon in such a coupled terrigenous-riverine system strongly interact and are climate-sensitive, yet their functioning is rarely considered in Earth system models and their response to climate change is still largely unknown. To quantify regional and global carbon budgets and climate change effects on carbon pools and carbon fluxes, it is important to account for the coupling between the land, the river, the ocean and the atmosphere. We developed the RIVerine Carbon Model (RivCM), which is directly coupled to the well-established dynamic vegetation and hydrology model LPJmL, in order to account for this large-scale coupling. We evaluate RivCM with observational data and show that some of the values are reproduced quite well by the model, while we see large deviations for other variables. This is mainly caused by some simplifications we assumed. Our evaluation shows that it is possible to reproduce large-scale carbon transport across a river system but that this involves large uncertainties. Acknowledging these uncertainties, we estimate the potential changes in riverine carbon by applying RivCM for climate forcing from five climate models and three CO2 emission scenarios (Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, SRES). We find that climate change causes a doubling of riverine organic carbon in the southern and western basin while reducing it by 20% in the eastern and northern parts. In contrast, the amount of riverine inorganic carbon shows a 2- to 3-fold increase in the entire basin, independent of the SRES scenario. The export of carbon to the atmosphere increases as well, with an average of about 30 %. In contrast, changes in future export of organic carbon to the Atlantic Ocean depend on the SRES scenario and are projected to either decrease by about 8.9% (SRES A1B) or increase by about 9.1% (SRES A2). Such changes in the terrigenous-riverine system could have local and regional impacts on the carbon budget of the whole Amazon basin and parts of the Atlantic Ocean. Changes in riverine carbon could lead to a shift in the riverine nutrient supply and pH, while changes in the exported carbon to the ocean lead to changes in the supply of organic material that acts as a food source in the Atlantic. On larger scales the increased outgassing of CO2 could turn the Amazon basin from a sink of carbon to a considerable source. Therefore, we propose that the coupling of terrestrial and riverine carbon budgets should be included in subsequent analysis of the future regional carbon budget. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 526 KW - global vegetation model KW - Amazon-River KW - organic-matter KW - seed dispersal KW - Atlantic-Ocean KW - water-balance KW - forest KW - CO2 KW - wetlands KW - system Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-410177 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 526 ER -