Earlier snowmelt reduces atmospheric carbon uptake in midlatitude subalpine forests

Previous work demonstrates conflicting evidence regarding the influence of snowmelt timing on forest net ecosystem exchange (NEE). Based on 15 years of eddy covariance measurements in Colorado, years with earlier snowmelt exhibited less net carbon uptake during the snow ablation period, which is a p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical research letters 2016-08, Vol.43 (15), p.8160-8168
Main Authors: Winchell, Taylor S., Barnard, David M., Monson, Russell K., Burns, Sean P., Molotch, Noah P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ablation
Air temperature
Alignment
Carbon
Carbon uptake
Climate
Climate change
Covariance
Eddy covariance
Equivalence
Exchanging
Forests
Global warming
Marine
net ecosystem exchange
Productivity
Reduction
Regression
Snow
snow ablation period
Snow-water equivalent
Snowmelt
Temperature
Temperature effects
Time measurement
Uptake
Uptakes
Vortices
Water
Water resources
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Summary:Previous work demonstrates conflicting evidence regarding the influence of snowmelt timing on forest net ecosystem exchange (NEE). Based on 15 years of eddy covariance measurements in Colorado, years with earlier snowmelt exhibited less net carbon uptake during the snow ablation period, which is a period of high potential for productivity. Earlier snowmelt aligned with colder periods of the seasonal air temperature cycle relative to later snowmelt. We found that the colder ablation‐period air temperatures during these early snowmelt years lead to reduced rates of daily NEE. Hence, earlier snowmelt associated with climate warming, counterintuitively, leads to colder atmospheric temperatures during the snow ablation period and concomitantly reduced rates of net carbon uptake. Using a multilinear‐regression (R2 = 0.79, P 
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007
DOI:10.1002/2016GL069769