Abstract
There is growing evidence of climate change impacts on northern ecosystems. While most climate change studies base their assessments on air temperature, spatial variation of soil temperature responses have not been fully examined as a metric of climate change. Here we examined spatial variations of soil temperature responses to an ensemble of regional climate model (RCM) projections at multiple depths in upland and riparian zones in the Swedish boreal forest. Modeling showed a stronger influence of air temperature on riparian soil temperature than was simulated for upland soils. The RCM ensemble projected a warming range of 4.7–6.0 °C in riparian and 4.3–5.7 °C in upland soils. However, soils were slightly colder in the riparian zone during winter. While the historical record showed that upland soils are about 0.4 °C warmer than the riparian soils, this may be reversed in the future as model projections showed that on an annual basis, riparian soils might be slightly warmer by 0.2 to 0.4 °C than upland soils. However, upland soils could warm up earlier (April) compared to riparian soils (May).
Highlights
There is increasing evidence of climate change impacts in the boreal forest and other snow dominated northern ecosystems (Barnett et al 2005; Brown and Robinson 2011; Koca et al 2006)
Bias correction was needed as the uncorrected regional climate model (RCM) ensemble median showed limited agreement with the observed air temperature and precipitation series (Supp 3)
Within the 25th and 75th percentile, annual precipitation could change by 2–27% and average air temperature could increase by 2.8–5.0 °C
Summary
There is increasing evidence of climate change impacts in the boreal forest and other snow dominated northern ecosystems (Barnett et al 2005; Brown and Robinson 2011; Koca et al 2006). Projections of possible future climate change impacts in northern ecosystems are necessary as the boreal forest exerts an important control on regional biogeochemical cycles with global consequences. While there is no consensus on the magnitude of future changes in this northern region, historical records show that recent decades are warmer than the last century (Karlsson et al 2014). In addition to warmer air temperature that can extend growing season length and alter plant community composition (Charles and Dukes 2009), climate change would shift precipitation patterns toward rainfall dominance (Berghuijs et al 2014) and a decrease in winter snow cover (Brown and Robinson 2011) in northern regions. There is a lack of knowledge about coupling/decoupling of soil-air temperature responses to a changing climate as routine monitoring in most regions does not adequately include measurement of soil temperature at a small spatial scale that will reflect landscape heterogeneity
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