Potential near-future carbon uptake overcomes losses from a large insect outbreak in British Columbia, Canada
| dc.contributor.author | Arora, Vivek K. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Peng, Yiran | |
| dc.contributor.author | Kurz, Werner A. | |
| dc.contributor.author | John C., Fyfe | |
| dc.contributor.author | Hawkins, Barbara J. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Schoeneberg (Werner), Arelia T. | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2018-09-14T23:12:32Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2018-09-14T23:12:32Z | |
| dc.date.copyright | 2016 | en_US |
| dc.date.issued | 2016 | |
| dc.description.abstract | The current capacity of northern high‐latitude forests to sequester carbon has been suggested to be undermined by the potential increase in fire and insect outbreaks. Here we investigate the response of the terrestrial ecosystems in the province of British Columbia (BC), Canada, to the recent large mountain pine beetle (MPB) outbreak that started in 1999 as well as changing climate and continually increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration up to 2050, in a combined framework, using a process‐based model. Model simulations suggest that the recent MPB outbreak results in BC's forests accumulating 328 Tg less carbon over the 1999–2020 period. Over this same period changing climate and increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration, however, yield enhanced carbon uptake equal to a cumulative sink of around 900–1060 Tg C, depending on the future climate change scenario, indicating that the reduced carbon uptake by land due to the MPB disturbance may already be surpassed by 2020. | en_US |
| dc.description.reviewstatus | Reviewed | en_US |
| dc.description.scholarlevel | Faculty | en_US |
| dc.description.sponsorship | This research was made possible by funding from the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS), which is hosted and led by the University of Victoria in collaboration with BC’s three other research-intensive universities. We would like to thank the BC MFLNRO, Tim Ebata, and Adrian Walton for the MPB disturbance data and their help in interpreting these data. We would also like to thank the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), the Climate Research Unit, University of East Anglia, and Nicolas Viovy, whose work led to the CRUNCEP data set. We would also like to thank Juha Metsaranta and Bill Merryfield for their comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. We also acknowledge salary support from Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada. Comments from two anonymous reviewers are also acknowledged which greatly helped to improve this manuscript. The data used to generate figures in the manuscript and supporting information can be obtained from the first author. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.citation | Arora, V. K., Y. Peng, W. A. Kurz, J. C. Fyfe, B. Hawkins, and A. T. Werner (2016), Potential near-future carbon uptake overcomes losses from a large insect outbreak in British Columbia, Canada, Geophysical Research Letters, 43(6), 2590–2598. doi:10.1002/2015GL067532 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2015GL067532 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1828/10071 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Geophysical Research Letters | en_US |
| dc.subject | Centre for Forest Biology | |
| dc.subject | Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium (PCIC) | |
| dc.subject.department | Department of Biology | |
| dc.title | Potential near-future carbon uptake overcomes losses from a large insect outbreak in British Columbia, Canada | en_US |
| dc.type | Article | en_US |