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Change in soil organic carbon and its climate drivers over the Tibetan Plateau in CMIP5 earth system models

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Abstract

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is the largest carbon pool in the terrestrial carbon cycle, which is closely linked to climate change and global warming feedbacks. Based on proxy observation data and outputs from the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP5), we analyzed quantitatively the spatial distribution and temporal change for SOC using boosted regression trees (BRT) over the Tibetan Plateau (TP). The ensemble proxy observation SOC stock data indicated a decreasing spatial distribution from southeast to northwest over the TP. We used data from ten CMIP5 earth system models (ESMs) for SOC, which exhibited differences. However, the CMIP5 multi-model ensemble (MME) result presented a similar spatial distribution pattern to the ensemble proxy observation SOC, while SOC storage and turnover times from the CMIP5 MME model were less than the ensemble proxy observation. The BRT results indicated that air temperature (Ta) accounted for 44.81% of the relative contribution and was the most influential variable on MME SOC. This was followed by net primary production (NPP), with a 19.09% relative contribution. The relative influence of the top 10 cm soil temperature, total soil water, and precipitation on MME SOC was 13.55%, 12.68%, and 9.87%, respectively. Using the BRT method to determine the spatial distribution of relative contribution of SOC for these five variables demonstrated that Ta was mainly higher over the central and northwestern regions of the TP, and NPP was higher over the western central regions and along the plateau’s eastern edge. The statistical frequency of maximum relative contribution to SOC for the five variables indicated that the relative contribution of NPP covered the largest area, with 32% of the total grid numbers, followed by Ta, with 25%.

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Acknowledgement

This work is jointly supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA19070404), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42075090, 41805079, 41875018, and 41930759), the Foundation for Excellent Youth Scholars of Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources CAS (FEYS2019001), and the Science and Technology Plan of Gansu Province, China (20JR10RA070).

Availability of data and material

All the data used in the current study are public. The CMIP5 data can be downloaded from https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip5/; the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) were download from the ORNL DAAC web https://daac.ornl.gov/cgi-bin/dsviewer.pl?ds_id=1247; the International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme Data and Information System (IGBP-DIS) can be obtained at the ORNL DAAC web https://daac.ornl.gov/cgi-bin/dsviewer.pl?ds_id=565; and the MODIS NPP data can be obtained from the Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group (NTSG) at the University of Montana (http://files.ntsg.umt.edu/data/NTSG_Products/MOD17/).

Code availability

NCAR Command Language (NCL) was used to process the data process and plot the figures.

Funding

This work is jointly supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA19070404), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42075090, 41805079, 41875018, and 41930759), the Foundation for Excellent Youth Scholars of Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources CAS (FEYS2019001), and the Science and Technology Plan of Gansu Province, China (20JR10RA070).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Land Surface Process and Climate Change in Cold and Arid Regions, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Suosuo Li, Shaoying Wang, Yongjie Pan & Yanyan Qin

  2. Key Laboratory of Arid Climatic Change and Reduction Disaster, Gansu Province and Key Laboratory of Arid Climatic Change and Reduction Disaster, CMA, Institute of Arid Meteorology, China Meteorological Administration, Lanzhou, 730020, China

    Yuanpu Liu

  3. Plateau Atmosphere and Environment Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, School of Atmospheric Sciences, Chengdu University of Information Technology, Chengdu, 610225, China

    Shihua Lyu

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  1. Suosuo Li
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Contributions

Suosuo Li contributed to the idea of the study and wrote most part of the manuscript.

Yuanpu Liu performed the data analyses and plotted some of the figures.

Shihua Lyu restructured and rewrote the introduction part.

Shaoying Wang helped replot Figs. 3 and 4.

Yongjie Pan help us improve the introduction part and read and corrected the whole manuscript.

Yanyan Qin help us list the table about the model information and explain the relationship between soil carbon and environment and vegetation.

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Correspondence to Suosuo Li.

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Li, S., Liu, Y., Lyu, S. et al. Change in soil organic carbon and its climate drivers over the Tibetan Plateau in CMIP5 earth system models. Theor Appl Climatol 145, 187–196 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-021-03631-y

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