Related papers: Vegetation-climate feedbacks across scales
In the present study it is shown that significant impacts on forests can lead to large climate fluctuations at global level. This research takes into account various scenarios for the reconstruction of forest areas using the geo-ecological…
The search for biosignatures necessitates developing our understanding of life under different conditions. If life can influence the climate evolution of its planet then understanding the behaviour of life-climate feedbacks under extreme…
Plankton is the productive base of aquatic ecosystems and plays a major role in the global control of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Nevertheless, after intensive study, the factors that drive its spatial distribution are still far from being…
Nonlinear plant-scale interactions controlling the soil-water balance are generally not valid at larger spatial scales due to spatial heterogeneity in rainfall and vegetation type. The relationships between spatially averaged variables are…
Global warming is leading to unprecedented changes in our planet, with great societal, economical and environmental implications, especially with the growing demand of biofuels and food. Assessing the impact of climate on vegetation is of…
The interaction between cities and their respective green regions corresponds to an interesting issue that has received growing attention over the last decades. These relationships have multiple natures, ranging from providing habitat for…
We propose a unified framework linking silicate weathering feedbacks, ecohydrological optimality and vegetation-climate interactions to explain Earth's Global Average Temperature evolution over the Phanerozoic. The framework integrates two…
Earth's climate is influenced by over a dozen feedbacks, but only three dominate its long-term climate behavior. Models of the exoplanet habitable zone (HZ) assume that this is similar for other Earth-like planets. We used dynamical…
In the past decades human activities caused global Earth system changes, e.g., climate change or biodiversity loss. Simultaneously, these associated impacts have increased environmental awareness within societies across the globe, thereby…
The hydrologic cycle has wide impacts on the ocean salinity and circulation, carbon and nitrogen cycles, and the ecosystem. Under anthropogenic global warming, previous studies showed that the intensification of the hydrologic cycle is a…
Planetary rotation rate is a key parameter in determining atmospheric circulation and hence the spatial pattern of clouds. Since clouds can exert a dominant control on planetary radiation balance, rotation rate could be critical for…
Phenological timing -- i.e. the course of annually recurring development stages in nature -- is of particular interest since it can be understood as a proxy for the climate at a specific region; moreover changes in the so called…
Water vapour is highly subsaturated in much of the Earth's atmosphere. This has important consequences for water vapour feedback, and also for general phenomena such as the runaway greenhouse. In this chapter, we discuss the processes that…
Although non-greenhouse gases can vary substantially in abundance in Earth-like atmospheres, their climatic influences remain insufficiently understood. To investigate how such gases regulate climate, we vary the abundance of N$_2$ as a…
Self-organized spatial patterns of vegetation are frequent in drylands and, because pattern shape correlates with water availability, they have been suggested as important indicators of ecosystem health. However, the mechanisms underlying…
The potential habitability of an exoplanet is traditionally assessed by determining if its orbit falls within the circumstellar `habitable zone' of its star, defined as the distance at which water could be liquid on the surface of a planet…
Earth's modern climate is characterized by wet, rainy deep tropics, however paleoclimate and planetary science have revealed a wide range of hydrological cycle regimes connected to different external parameters. Here we investigate how…
Afforestation greatly influences several earth system processes, making it essential to understand these effects to accurately assess its potential for climate change mitigation. Although our understanding of forest-climate system…
Plants solve complex problems without centralized control, relying instead on growth-driven dynamics to sense, navigate, and optimize resource acquisition. This review presents a unified physical framework for understanding plant behavior…
Tree-grass coexistence is a defining feature of savanna ecosystems, which play an important role in supporting biodiversity and human populations worldwide. While recent advances have clarified many of the underlying processes, how these…