FastFind »   Lastname: doi:10.1029/ Year: | Advanced Search  

AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Index Terms

  • Biogeosciences: Ecosystems, structure and dynamics
  • Biogeosciences: Biosphere/atmosphere interactions
  • Biogeosciences: Biogeochemical cycles, processes, and modeling
  • Biogeosciences: Carbon cycling
  • Biogeosciences: Remote sensing

Abstract

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L21415, 4 PP., 2005
doi:10.1029/2005GL024370

Precipitation controls Sahel greening trend

Thomas Hickler

Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystems Analysis, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Lars Eklundh

Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystems Analysis, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Jonathan W. Seaquist

Global Environmental and Climate Change Centre and Department of Geography, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Benjamin Smith

Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystems Analysis, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Jonas Ardö

Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystems Analysis, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Lennart Olsson

Lund University Center for Sustainability Studies, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Martin T. Sykes

Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystems Analysis, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Martin Sjöström

Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystems Analysis, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

The Sahel region has been identified as a “hot spot” of global environmental change, but understanding of the roles of different climatic and anthropogenic forcing factors driving change in the region is incomplete. We show that a process-based ecosystem model driven by climatic and atmospheric CO2 data alone closely reproduces the satellite-observed greening trend of the Sahel vegetation and its interannual variability between 1982 and 1998. Changes in precipitation were identified as the primary driver of the aggregated simulated vegetation changes. According to the model, the increasing carbon uptake through vegetation was associated with an increasing relative carbon sink; but integrated over the whole period, the Sahel was predicted to be a net source of carbon.

Received 11 August 2005; accepted 11 October 2005; published 12 November 2005.

Citation: Hickler, T., L. Eklundh, J. W. Seaquist, B. Smith, J. Ardö, L. Olsson, M. T. Sykes, and M. Sjöström (2005), Precipitation controls Sahel greening trend, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L21415, doi:10.1029/2005GL024370.

Cited By

Please wait one moment ...