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Coastal environments have experienced large ecological changes as a result of human activities over the last 100–200 years. To understand the severity and potential consequences of such changes, paleoenvironmental records provide important contextual information. The Baltic Sea coastal zone is naturally a vulnerable system and subject to significant human-induced impacts. To put the recent environ
Models predicting ecosystem carbon dioxide (CO2) exchange under future climate change rely on relatively few real-world tests of their assumptions and outputs. Here, we demonstrate a rapid and cost-effective method to estimate CO2 exchange from intact vegetation patches under varying atmospheric CO2 concentrations. We find that net ecosystem CO2 uptake (NEE) in a boreal forest rose linearly by 4.7
A model of (Formula presented.) atmospheric transport in vegetated canopies is tested against measurements of the flow, as well as (Formula presented.) concentrations at the Norunda research station located inside a mixed pine–spruce forest. We present the results of simulations of wind-speed profiles and (Formula presented.) concentrations inside and above the forest canopy with a one-dimensional
Changes in vegetation phenology are among the most sensitive biological responses to global change. While land surface phenological changes in the Northern Hemisphere have been extensively studied from the widely used long-term AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) data, current knowledge on land surface phenological trends and the associated drivers remains uncertain for the tropics. T
The patterns in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) photo-mineralization along the freshwater continuum from land to sea are poorly known. Specifically, it has not been resolved how the photo-degradation of DOC into CO2 (PD) depends on the combination of intrinsic properties of DOC and extrinsic variables that affect the photo-reactions. We measured PD per unit of absorbed ultraviolet light energy (PD-
Earth system models (ESMs) are key tools for providing climate projections under different scenarios of human-induced forcing. ESMs include a large number of additional processes and feedbacks such as biogeochemical cycles that traditional physical climate models do not consider. Yet, some processes such as cloud dynamics and ecosystem functional response still have fairly high uncertainties. In t
Changes in terrestrial tropical carbon stocks have an important role in the global carbon budget. However, current observational tools do not allow accurate and large-scale monitoring of the spatial distribution and dynamics of carbon stocks1. Here, we used low-frequency L-band passive microwave observations to compute a direct and spatially explicit quantification of annual aboveground carbon (AG
Natural wetlands constitute the largest and most uncertain source of methane (CH4) to the atmosphere and a large fraction of them are found in the northern latitudes. These emissions are typically estimated using process ("bottom-up") or inversion ("top-down") models. However, estimates from these two types of models are not independent of each other since the top-down estimates usually rely on th
With growing tourism in natural areas, monitoring recreational impacts is becoming increasingly important. This paper aims to evaluate how di_erent trampling intensities a_ect some common Icelandic plant communities by using digital photographs to analyze and quantify vegetation in experimental plots and to monitor vegetation recovery rates over a consecutive three-year period. Additionally, it se
Whole tree harvesting (WTH) following final felling of productive forests is increasingly promoted as a method to extract biomass for energy purposes. Despite its importance, there is a limited number of experimental studies investigating the impacts of WTH on forest ecosystem sustainability. Modelling studies have previously been carried out to complement and explain empirical observations from f
Background: A warmer climate has consequences for the timing of phenological events, as temperature is a key factor controlling plant development and flowering. In this study, we analyse the effects of the long-term climate change and an extreme weather event on the first flowering day (FFD) of five spring-flowering wild plant species in the United Kingdom. Citizen science data from the UK Woodlan
The Circumpolar North has been changing rapidly within the last decades, and the socioeconomic systems of the Eurasian Arctic and Siberia in particular have displayed the most dramatic changes. Here, anthropogenic drivers of environmental change such as migration and industrialization are added to climate-induced changes in the natural environment such as permafrost thawing and increased frequency
Bastin et al (Reports, 5 July 2019, p. 76) claim that 205 gigatonnes of carbon can be globally sequestered by restoring 0.9 billion hectares of forest and woodland canopy cover. Reinterpreting the data from Bastin et al, we show that the global land area actually required to sequester human-emitted CO2 is at least a factor of 3 higher, representing an unrealistically large area.
Optimally using multi-source remote-sensing (RS) and/or reanalyzed hydrological products requires knowledge of each product's accuracy and inter-product error cross-correlations. Quadruple collocation (QC) analysis can potentially solve for this error information without the reliance of high-quality ground references. However, QC requires at least three independent products for a variable of inter
Remote sensing-derived cropland products have depicted the location and extent of agricultural lands with an ever increasing accuracy. However, limited attention has been devoted to distinguishing between actively cropped fields and fallowed fields within agricultural lands, and in particular so in grass fallow systems of semi-arid areas. In the Sahel, one of the largest dryland regions worldwide,
The lack of a standardized database of eddy covariance observations has been an obstacle for data-driven estimation of terrestrial CO2 fluxes in Asia. In this study, we developed such a standardized database using 54 sites from various databases by applying consistent postprocessing for data-driven estimation of gross primary productivity (GPP) and net ecosystem CO2 exchange (NEE). Data-driven est
Weather and climate conditions can have large impacts on the outcome of forest management operations: Suboptimal conditions can increase the amount of driving damage to forest ground caused by the heavy machines used for harvesting, forwarding and soil scarification. Planting of tree seedlings is commonly practised after clear cutting, and drought in summer or soil frost uplifting in autumn reduce
The terrestrial carbon and water cycles are intimately linked: the carbon cycle is driven by photosynthesis, while the water balance is dominated by transpiration, and both fluxes are controlled by plant stomatal conductance. The ratio between these fluxes, the plant water-use efficiency (WUE), is a useful indicator of vegetation function. WUE can be estimated using several techniques, including l
Background Late blight (caused by Phytophthora infestans) is a devastating potato disease that has been found to occur earlier in the season over the last decades in Fennoscandia. Up until now the reasons for this change have not been investigated. Possible explanations for this change are climate alterations, changes in potato production or changes in pathogen biology, such as increased fitness o
The challenge of multi-use forestry is to fulfil a range of economic, ecologic and social goals in a sustainable way, accounting for synergies and trade-offs among the ecosystem services provided. Climate changes add to the complexity via effects on forest ecosystem processes, such as primary production and respiration, and also by adding a new goal on the agenda: the role of forests in climate mi
