Christopher Schwalm<\/strong>, assistant research professor for NAU\u2019s School of Earth Sciences and Sustainability.<\/p>\nThe scientists found a major drought that struck western North America in 2000 to 2004 significantly reduced carbon uptake and stressed the region\u2019s water resources.<\/p>\n
The study illustrates the impact of the drought as seen in reduced precipitation, decreased soil moisture, reduced river flows and lower crop yields. It also poses the question of how common such an extreme event might be in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo our surprise, the drought, which was severe with respect to recent and past conditions, is forecasted to become the wetter end of a new climatology,\u201d Schwalm said. \u201cAnd it would make the 21st century climate akin to mega-droughts of the last millennium.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the severity of this widespread five-year drought, the worst of its kind over the past 800 years, inhibited carbon uptake, essentially contributing to global warming conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn normal climate conditions North America absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, serving as an offset to anthropogenic, or human-produced, carbon emissions,\u201d said co-author Christopher Williams, assistant professor in the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University. \u201cOur study shows how this typical carbon uptake was severely impaired by this large-scale and persistent drought.\u201d<\/p>\n
And climate models demonstrate a continuing trend toward a warmer planet. Global circulation patterns are expected to shift in a way that would create drier conditions across western North America, expanding the region that is already chronically dry and making today\u2019s drought conditions the new normal.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this point, our concerns go beyond carbon uptake,\u201d Schwalm said. \u201cWe have to start looking at water resources, especially in parts of North America that already are dealing with water shortages.\u201d<\/p>\n
The study was based on analysis of data from NASA satellite remote sensing products and a suite of ground-based monitoring stations that directly measure carbon uptake and release. Data from the monitoring stations are assembled by a global community of scientists participating in FLUXNET, a network of micrometeorological tower sites that measure carbon, water, and energy exchanges. The instruments help to monitor plant productivity, evapotranspiration, and carbon and water budgets.<\/p>\n
The study was funded on a National Science Foundation grant awarded to Williams and Kevin Schaefer, research scientist at the University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Findings from a new scientific study indicate a major carbon release from the extreme turn-of-the-century drought in western North America\u2014the worst of the last millennium\u2014with likeliehood of even drier times ahead. The study, titled \u201cReduction in Carbon Uptake During Turn of the Century Drought in Western North America,\u201d published this week in\u00a0Nature-Geoscience, was conducted\u00a0by a…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":1204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}