Future projections of evapotranspiration (ET) are of critical importance for agricultural and freshwater management and for predicting land–atmosphere feedbacks on the climate system. However, ET from phase 5 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) simulations exhibits substantial biases, bolstering little confidence in future ET projections. Despite poor predictive skill and large bias of ET… More
Evapotranspiration (ET) is a key component of the atmospheric and terrestrial water and energy budgets. Satellite‐based vegetation index approaches have used remotely sensed vegetation and reanalysis meteorological properties with surface energy balance models to estimate global ET (MOD16 ET). We reconstructed satellite retrievals using in situ meteorology (Argonne‐ET) and evaluated them using a dense network… More
Releases of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) from thawing permafrost are expected to be among the largest feedbacks to climate from arctic ecosystems. However, the current net carbon (C) balance of terrestrial arctic ecosystems is unknown. Recent studies suggest that these ecosystems are sources, sinks, or approximately in balance at present…. More
Reforesting and managing ecosystems have been proposed as ways to mitigate global warming and offset anthropogenic carbon emissions. The intent of our opinion piece is to provide a perspective on how well plants and ecosystems sequester carbon. The ability of individual plants and ecosystems to mine carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, as defined by rates… More
Ecosystem models often perform poorly in reproducing interannual variability in carbon and water fluxes, resulting in considerable uncertainty when estimating the land-carbon sink. While many aggregated variables (growing season length, seasonal precipitation, or temperature) have been suggested as predictors for interannual variability in carbon fluxes, their explanatory power is limited and uncertainties remain as to… More
The global terrestrial carbon sink offsets one-third of the world’s fossil fuel emissions, but the strength of this sink is highly sensitive to large-scale extreme events. In 2012, the contiguous United States experienced exceptionally warm temperatures and the most severe drought since the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, resulting in substantial economic damage. It… More