caa a22 4500 528787527 20190104030322.0 cr unu---uuuuu 180924s2014 xx s 000 0 eng 10.3929/ethz-b-000086673 doi 10.5194/bg-11-3057-2014 doi (ETHRESEARCH)oai:www.research-collection.ethz.ch:20.500.11850/86673 Climate-mediated spatiotemporal variability in terrestrial productivity across Europe [Elektronische Daten] [Xiuchen Wu, Flurin Babst, Philippe Ciais, David Charles Frank, Markus Reichstein, Martin Wattenbach, Christian Zang, Miguel D. Mahecha] Open access ethresearch Quantifying the interannual variability (IAV) of the terrestrial ecosystem productivity and its sensitivity to climate is crucial for improving carbon budget predictions. In this context it is necessary to disentangle the influence of climate from impacts of other mechanisms underlying the spatiotemporal patterns of IAV of the ecosystem productivity. In this study we investigated the spatiotemporal patterns of IAV of historical observations of European crop yields in tandem with a set of climate variables. We further evaluated if relevant remote-sensing retrievals of NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index) and FAPAR (fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation) depict a similar behaviour. Our results reveal distinct spatial patterns in the IAV of the analysed proxies linked to terrestrial productivity. In particular, we find higher IAV in water-limited regions of Europe (Mediterranean and temperate continental Europe) compared to other regions in both crop yield and remote-sensing observations. Our results further indicate that variations in the water balance during the active growing season exert a more pronounced and direct effect than variations of temperature on explaining the spatial patterns in IAV of productivity-related variables in temperate Europe. Overall, we observe a temporally increasing trend in the IAV of terrestrial productivity and an increasing sensitivity of productivity to water availability in dry regions of Europe during the 1975-2009 period. In the same regions, a simultaneous increase in the IAV of water availability was detected. These findings suggest intricate responses of carbon fluxes to climate variability in Europe and that the IAV of terrestrial productivity has become potentially more sensitive to changes in water availability in the dry regions in Europe. The changing sensitivity of terrestrial productivity accompanied by the changing IAV of climate is expected to impact carbon stocks and the net carbon balance of European ecosystems. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 ethresearch Wu Xiuchen joint author Babst Flurin joint author Ciais Philippe joint author Frank David Charles joint author Reichstein Markus joint author Wattenbach Martin joint author Zang Christian joint author Mahecha Miguel D. joint author Biogeosciences Göttingen : Copernicus 11 (11), pp. 3057-3068 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/86673 text/html WWW-Backlink auf das Repository (Open access) 1 Journal Article ethresearch ETHRESEARCH 856 40 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/86673 text/html WWW-Backlink auf das Repository (Open access) ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Wu Xiuchen joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Babst Flurin joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Ciais Philippe joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Frank David Charles joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Reichstein Markus joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Wattenbach Martin joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Zang Christian joint author ETHRESEARCH 700 1- Mahecha Miguel D. joint author ETHRESEARCH 773 0- Biogeosciences Göttingen : Copernicus 11 (11), pp. 3057-3068 BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 ETHRESEARCH ETHRESEARCH ETHRESEARCH Journal Article Open access