NDLI: Moving Beyond Global Warming Potentials to Quantify the Climatic Role of Ecosystems

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Moving Beyond Global Warming Potentials to Quantify the Climatic Role of Ecosystems

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Moving Beyond Global Warming Potentials to Quantify the Climatic Role of Ecosystems

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Neubauer, Scott C. Megonigal, J. Patrick
Copyright Year	2015
Abstract	For decades, ecosystem scientists have used global warming potentials (GWPs) to compare the radiative forcing of various greenhouse gases to determine if ecosystems have a net warming or cooling effect on climate. On a conceptual basis, the continued use of GWPs by the ecological community may be untenable because the use of GWPs requires the implicit assumption that greenhouse gas emissions occur as a single pulse; this assumption is rarely justified in ecosystem studies. We present two alternate metrics—the sustained-flux global warming potential (SGWP, for gas emissions) and the sustained-flux global cooling potential (SGCP, for gas uptake)—for use when gas fluxes persist over time. The SGWP is generally larger than the GWP (by up to ~40%) for both methane and nitrous oxide emissions, creating situations where the GWP and SGWP metrics could provide opposing interpretations about the climatic role of an ecosystem. Further, there is an asymmetry in methane and nitrous oxide dynamics between persistent emission and uptake situations, producing very different values for the SGWP vs. SGCP and leading to the conclusion that ecosystems that take up these gases are very effective at reducing radiative forcing. Although the new metrics are more realistic than the GWP for ecosystem fluxes, we further argue that even these metrics may be insufficient in the context of trying to understand the lifetime climatic role of an ecosystem. A dynamic modeling approach that has the flexibility to account for temporally variable rates of greenhouse gas exchange, and is not limited by a fixed time frame, may be more informative than the SGWP, SGCP, or GWP. Ultimately, we hope this article will stimulate discussion within the ecosystem science community about the most appropriate way(s) of assessing the role of ecosystems as regulators of global climate.
Starting Page	1000
Ending Page	1013
Page Count	14
File Format	PDF
ISSN	14329840
Journal	Ecosystems
Volume Number	18
Issue Number	6
e-ISSN	14350629
Language	English
Publisher	Springer US
Publisher Date	2015-05-16
Publisher Place	New York
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	biogeochemical cycling atmospheric perturbation model climate change carbon sequestration radiative forcing switchover time carbon dioxide methane nitrous oxide Ecology Plant Sciences Zoology Environmental Management Geoecology/Natural Processes Hydrology/Water Resources
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Ecology Environmental Chemistry Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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Correction to: Moving Beyond Global Warming Potentials to Quantify the Climatic Role of Ecosystems

2.5. Nitrous Oxide 2.6. Methane

Global methane and nitrous oxide emissions from terrestrial ecosystems due to multiple environmental changes

Analysis of greenhouse gas methane ch4 and nitrous oxide n2o emission in relation to global warming potential and carbon storage from rice ecosystem

Animating the Carbon Cycle

Climate Variation and Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Cycling Processes in a Northern Hardwood Forest

Biogeochemical cycling of methane and nitrous oxide in the northern indian ocean

Current understanding of the global cycling of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide.

Global warming potential of drained and undrained peatlands in estonia: A synthesis

Moving Beyond Global Warming Potentials to Quantify the Climatic Role of Ecosystems

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Correction to: Moving Beyond Global Warming Potentials to Quantify the Climatic Role of Ecosystems

2.5. Nitrous Oxide 2.6. Methane

Global methane and nitrous oxide emissions from terrestrial ecosystems due to multiple environmental changes

Analysis of greenhouse gas methane ch4 and nitrous oxide n2o emission in relation to global warming potential and carbon storage from rice ecosystem

Animating the Carbon Cycle

Climate Variation and Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Cycling Processes in a Northern Hardwood Forest

Biogeochemical cycling of methane and nitrous oxide in the northern indian ocean

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Global warming potential of drained and undrained peatlands in estonia: A synthesis

Moving Beyond Global Warming Potentials to Quantify the Climatic Role of Ecosystems