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Precipitation controls Sahel greening trend

Hickler, Thomas LU ; Eklundh, Lars LU orcid ; Seaquist, Jonathan LU ; Smith, Benjamin LU ; Ardö, Jonas LU orcid ; Olsson, Lennart LU ; Sykes, Martin LU and Sjöström, Martin LU (2005) In Geophysical Research Letters 32(21).
Abstract
The Sahel region has been identified as a "hot spot'' of global environmental change, but understanding of the roles of different climatic and anthropogenic forcing factors driving change in the region is incomplete. We show that a process-based ecosystem model driven by climatic and atmospheric CO2 data alone closely reproduces the satellite-observed greening trend of the Sahel vegetation and its interannual variability between 1982 and 1998. Changes in precipitation were identified as the primary driver of the aggregated simulated vegetation changes. According to the model, the increasing carbon uptake through vegetation was associated with an increasing relative carbon sink; but integrated over the whole period, the Sahel was predicted... (More)
The Sahel region has been identified as a "hot spot'' of global environmental change, but understanding of the roles of different climatic and anthropogenic forcing factors driving change in the region is incomplete. We show that a process-based ecosystem model driven by climatic and atmospheric CO2 data alone closely reproduces the satellite-observed greening trend of the Sahel vegetation and its interannual variability between 1982 and 1998. Changes in precipitation were identified as the primary driver of the aggregated simulated vegetation changes. According to the model, the increasing carbon uptake through vegetation was associated with an increasing relative carbon sink; but integrated over the whole period, the Sahel was predicted to be a net source of carbon. (Less)
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author
; ; ; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Geophysical Research Letters
volume
32
issue
21
publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
external identifiers
  • wos:000233354500007
  • scopus:29344444517
ISSN
1944-8007
DOI
10.1029/2005GL024370
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
dd53617e-f63b-42ef-ab1e-ffb1657c8a98 (old id 213154)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 16:39:10
date last changed
2022-04-15 06:06:02
@article{dd53617e-f63b-42ef-ab1e-ffb1657c8a98,
  abstract     = {{The Sahel region has been identified as a "hot spot'' of global environmental change, but understanding of the roles of different climatic and anthropogenic forcing factors driving change in the region is incomplete. We show that a process-based ecosystem model driven by climatic and atmospheric CO2 data alone closely reproduces the satellite-observed greening trend of the Sahel vegetation and its interannual variability between 1982 and 1998. Changes in precipitation were identified as the primary driver of the aggregated simulated vegetation changes. According to the model, the increasing carbon uptake through vegetation was associated with an increasing relative carbon sink; but integrated over the whole period, the Sahel was predicted to be a net source of carbon.}},
  author       = {{Hickler, Thomas and Eklundh, Lars and Seaquist, Jonathan and Smith, Benjamin and Ardö, Jonas and Olsson, Lennart and Sykes, Martin and Sjöström, Martin}},
  issn         = {{1944-8007}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{21}},
  publisher    = {{American Geophysical Union (AGU)}},
  series       = {{Geophysical Research Letters}},
  title        = {{Precipitation controls Sahel greening trend}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2005GL024370}},
  doi          = {{10.1029/2005GL024370}},
  volume       = {{32}},
  year         = {{2005}},
}