Abstract
Coupled terrestrial carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and hydrological processes play a crucial role in the climate system, providing both positive and negative feedbacks to climate change. In this review we summarize published research results to gain an increased understanding of the dynamics between vegetation and atmosphere processes. A variety of methods, including monitoring (e.g., eddy covariance flux tower, remote sensing, etc.) and modeling (i.e., ecosystem, hydrology and atmospheric inversion modeling) the terrestrial carbon and water budgeting, are evaluated and compared. We highlight two major research areas where additional research could be focused: (i) Conceptually, the hydrological and biogeochemical processes are closely linked, however, the coupling processes between terrestrial C, N and hydrological processes are far from well understood; and (ii) there are significant uncertainties in estimates of the components of the C balance, especially at landscape and regional scales. To address these two questions, a synthetic research framework is needed which includes both bottom-up and top-down approaches integrating scalable (footprint and ecosystem) models and a spatially nested hierarchy of observations which include multispectral remote sensing, inventories, existing regional clusters of eddy-covariance flux towers and CO2 mixing ratio towers and chambers.
Highlights
The terrestrial biosphere plays a crucial role in the climate system providing both positive and negative feedbacks to climate change [1]
In order to filter through this large body of literature, we concentrated on papers discussing on the coupling processes between C, water and N cycles and we extracted information from a database of published results that we have collated during the past decade
terrestrial biogeochemistry models (TBMs) developed from scaling up local ecological models, are process-based models that simulate dynamics of energy, water, and C and N exchange among biospheric pools and the atmosphere [136]
Summary
The terrestrial biosphere plays a crucial role in the climate system providing both positive and negative feedbacks to climate change [1]. Understanding the coupled terrestrial C, nitrogen (N) and water cycle is required to gain a comprehensive understanding of the role that terrestrial ecosystems play in the global climate change. Running et al [10] described a blueprint for more comprehensive coordination of the various flux measurement and modeling activities into a global terrestrial monitoring network by reviewing the literature published before the middle of 1990s. Baldocchi [9] recently provided a comprehensive review of research results associated with a global network of C flux measurement systems. In order to filter through this large body of literature, we concentrated on papers discussing on the coupling processes between C, water and N cycles and we extracted information from a database of published results that we have collated during the past decade (available on request). We discuss research gaps in C sinks/sources estimates and we discuss the current research trends and the near-future directions in this field and propose an upscaling framework for landscape and regional C and water fluxes estimates
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