Xu Donghui, Bisht Gautam, Tan Zeli, Sinha Eva, Di Vittorio Alan V, Zhou Tian, Ivanov Valeriy Y, Leung L Ruby
Atmospheric, Climate, & Earth Sciences Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA.
Earth and Environmental Sciences Area, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
Nat Commun. 2024 Mar 18;15(1):2438. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-45286-z.
Climate change can alter wetland extent and function, but such impacts are perplexing. Here, changes in wetland characteristics over North America from 25° to 53° North are projected under two climate scenarios using a state-of-the-science Earth system model. At the continental scale, annual wetland area decreases by ~10% (6%-14%) under the high emission scenario, but spatiotemporal changes vary, reaching up to ±50%. As the dominant driver of these changes shifts from precipitation to temperature in the higher emission scenario, wetlands undergo substantial drying during summer season when biotic processes peak. The projected disruptions to wetland seasonality cycles imply further impacts on biodiversity in major wetland habitats of upper Mississippi, Southeast Canada, and the Everglades. Furthermore, wetlands are projected to significantly shrink in cold regions due to the increased infiltration as warmer temperature reduces soil ice. The large dependence of the projections on climate change scenarios underscores the importance of emission mitigation to sustaining wetland ecosystems in the future.
气候变化会改变湿地范围和功能，但此类影响错综复杂。在此，利用最先进的地球系统模型，在两种气候情景下预测了北美北纬25°至53°地区湿地特征的变化。在大陆尺度上，在高排放情景下，湿地面积每年减少约10%（6%-14%），但时空变化各异，幅度高达±50%。在更高排放情景下，这些变化的主要驱动因素从降水转变为温度，湿地在生物过程高峰期的夏季会经历大幅干涸。预计湿地季节性周期的中断将对上密西西比、加拿大东南部和大沼泽地等主要湿地栖息地的生物多样性产生进一步影响。此外，由于温度升高减少土壤结冰导致入渗增加，预计寒冷地区的湿地将大幅萎缩。这些预测对气候变化情景的高度依赖性凸显了未来减排对维持湿地生态系统的重要性。
