skip to main content


Title: Imaging canopy temperature: shedding (thermal) light on ecosystem processes
Summary

Canopy temperatureTcanis a key driver of plant function that emerges as a result of interacting biotic and abiotic processes and properties. However, understanding controls onTcanand forecasting canopy responses to weather extremes and climate change are difficult due to sparse measurements ofTcanat appropriate spatial and temporal scales. Burgeoning observations ofTcanfrom thermal cameras enable evaluation of energy budget theory and better understanding of how environmental controls, leaf traits and canopy structure influence temperature patterns. The canopy scale is relevant for connecting to remote sensing and testing biosphere model predictions. We anticipate that future breakthroughs in understanding of ecosystem responses to climate change will result from multiscale observations ofTcanacross a range of ecosystems.

 
more » « less
Award ID(s):
2025755 1802885
NSF-PAR ID:
10452006
Author(s) / Creator(s):
 ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  
Publisher / Repository:
Wiley-Blackwell
Date Published:
Journal Name:
New Phytologist
Volume:
230
Issue:
5
ISSN:
0028-646X
Page Range / eLocation ID:
p. 1746-1753
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Abstract

    Understanding the effects of intensification of Amazon basin hydrological cycling—manifest as increasingly frequent floods and droughts—on water and energy cycles of tropical forests is essential to meeting the challenge of predicting ecosystem responses to climate change, including forest “tipping points”. Here, we investigated the impacts of hydrological extremes on forest function using 12+ years of observations (between 2001–2020) of water and energy fluxes from eddy covariance, along with associated ecological dynamics from biometry, at the Tapajós National Forest. Measurements encompass the strong 2015–2016 El Niño drought and La Niña 2008–2009 wet events. We found that the forest responded strongly to El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO): Drought reduced water availability for evapotranspiration (ET) leading to large increases in sensible heat fluxes (H). PartitioningETby an approach that assumes transpiration (T) is proportional to photosynthesis, we found that water stress‐induced reductions in canopy conductance (Gs) droveTdeclines partly compensated by higher evaporation (E). By contrast, the abnormally wet La Niña period gave higherTand lowerE, with little change in seasonalET. Both El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events resulted in changes in forest structure, manifested as lower wet‐season leaf area index. However, only during El Niño 2015–2016, we observed a breakdown in the strong meteorological control of transpiration fluxes (via energy availability and atmospheric demand) because of slowing vegetation functions (via shutdown ofGsand significant leaf shedding). Drought‐reducedTandGs, higherHandE, amplified by feedbacks with higher temperatures and vapor pressure deficits, signaled that forest function had crossed a threshold, from which it recovered slowly, with delay, post‐drought. Identifying such tipping point onsets (beyond which future irreversible processes may occur) at local scale is crucial for predicting basin‐scale threshold‐crossing changes in forest energy and water cycling, leading to slow‐down in forest function, potentially resulting in Amazon forests shifting into alternate degraded states.

     
    more » « less
  2. Abstract

    The Community Earth System Model (CESM) is widely used for the prediction and understanding of climate variability and change. Accurate simulation of the behavior of near surface air temperature (T2m) is critical in such a model for addressing societally relevant problems. However, previous versions of CESM suffered from an overestimation of wintertimeT2mvariability in Northern Hemisphere (NH) land regions. Here, it is shown that the latest version of CESM (CESM2) exhibits a much improved representation of wintertimeT2mvariability compared to its predecessor and it now compares well with observations. A series of targeted experiments reveal that an important contributor to this improvement is the local effects of changes to the representation of snow density within the land surface component. Increased snow densities in CESM2 lead to enhanced conductance of the snow layer. As a result, larger heat fluxes across the snow layer are induced in the presence ofT2manomalies, leading to a greater dampening of surface and near surface atmospheric temperature anomalies. The implications for future projections with CESM2 are also considered through comparison of the CESM1 and CESM2 large ensembles. Aligned with the reduction in surface temperature variability, compared to CESM1, CESM2 exhibits reduced ensemble spread in future projections of NH winter mean temperature and a smaller decline in daily wintertimeT2mvariability under climate change. Overall, this improvement has increased the accuracy of CESM2 as a tool for the study of wintertimeT2mvariability and change.

     
    more » « less
  3. Abstract

    High temperature and accompanying high vapor pressure deficit often stress plants without causing distinctive changes in plant canopy structure and consequential spectral signatures. Sun‐induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), because of its mechanistic link with photosynthesis, may better detect such stress than remote sensing techniques relying on spectral reflectance signatures of canopy structural changes. However, our understanding about physiological mechanisms of SIF and its unique potential for physiological stress detection remains less clear. In this study, we measured SIF at a high‐temperature experiment, Temperature Free‐Air Controlled Enhancement, to explore the potential of SIF for physiological investigations. The experiment provided a gradient of soybean canopy temperature with 1.5, 3.0, 4.5, and 6.0°C above the ambient canopy temperature in the open field environments. SIF yield, which is normalized by incident radiation and the fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation, showed a high correlation with photosynthetic light use efficiency (r = 0.89) and captured dynamic plant responses to high‐temperature conditions. SIF yield was affected by canopy structural and plant physiological changes associated with high‐temperature stress (partial correlationr = 0.60 and −0.23). Near‐infrared reflectance of vegetation, only affected by canopy structural changes, was used to minimize the canopy structural impact on SIF yield and to retrieve physiological SIF yield (ΦF) signals. ΦFfurther excludes the canopy structural impact than SIF yield and indicates plant physiological variability, and we found that ΦFoutperformed SIF yield in responding to physiological stress (r = −0.37). Our findings highlight that ΦFsensitively responded to the physiological downregulation of soybean gross primary productivity under high temperature. ΦF, if reliably derived from satellite SIF, can support monitoring regional crop growth and different ecosystems' vegetation productivity under environmental stress and climate change.

     
    more » « less
  4. Abstract

    Widespread shifts in land cover and land management (LCLM) are being incentivized as tools to mitigate climate change, creating an urgent need for prognostic assessments of how LCLM impacts surface energy balance and temperature. Historically, observational studies have tended to focus on how LCLM impacts surface temperature (Tsurf), usually at annual timescales. However, understanding the potential for LCLM change to confer climate adaptation benefits, or to produce unintended adverse consequences, requires careful consideration of impacts on bothTsurfand the near-surface air temperature (Ta,local) when they are most consequential for ecosystem and societal well-being (e.g. on hot summer days). Here, long-term data from 130 AmeriFlux towers distributed between 19–71 °N are used to systematically explore LCLM impacts on bothTsurfandTa,local, with an explicit focus on midday summer periods when adaptive cooling is arguably most needed. We observe profound impacts of LCLM onTsurfat midday, frequently amounting to differences of 10 K or more from one site to the next. LCLM impacts onTa,localare smaller but still significant, driving variation of 5–10 K across sites. The magnitude of LCLM impacts on bothTsurfandTa,localis not well explained by plant functional type, climate regime, or albedo; however, we show that LCLM shifts that enhance ET or increase canopy height are likely to confer a local mid-day cooling benefit for bothTsurfandTa,localmost of the time. At night, LCLM impacts on temperature are much smaller, such that averaging across the diurnal cycle will underestimate the potential for land cover to mediate microclimate when the consequences for plant and human well-being are most stark. Finally, during especially hot periods, land cover impacts onTa,localandTsurfare less coordinated, and ecosystems that tend to cool the air during normal conditions may have a diminished capacity to do so when it is very hot. We end with a set of practical recommendations for future work evaluating the biophysical impacts and adaptation potential of LCLM shifts.

     
    more » « less
  5. Abstract

    Removal of biologically available nitrogen (N) by the microbially mediated processes denitrification and anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) affects ecosystem N availability. Although few studies have examined temperature responses of denitrification and anammox, previous work suggests that denitrification could become more important than anammox in response to climate warming. To test this hypothesis, we determined whether temperature responses of denitrification and anammox differed in shelf and estuarine sediments from coastal Rhode Island over a seasonal cycle. The influence of temperature and organic C availability was further assessed in a 12‐week laboratory microcosm experiment. Temperature responses, as characterized by thermal optima (Topt) and apparent activation energy (Ea), were determined by measuring potential rates of denitrification and anammox at 31 discrete temperatures ranging from 3 to 59 °C. With a few exceptions,ToptandEaof denitrification and anammox did not differ in Rhode Island sediments over the seasonal cycle. In microcosm sediments,Ea was somewhat lower for anammox compared to denitrification across all treatments. However,Topt did not differ between processes, and neither Ea nor Topt changed with warming or carbon addition. Thus, the two processes behaved similarly in terms of temperature responses, and these responses were not influenced by warming. This led us to reject the hypothesis that anammox is more cold‐adapted than denitrification in our study system. Overall, our study suggests that temperature responses of both processes can be accurately modeled for temperate regions in the future using a single set of parameters, which are likely not to change over the next century as a result of predicted climate warming. We further conclude that climate warming will not directly alter the partitioning of N flow through anammox and denitrification.

     
    more » « less