Browsing by Author "Kato, Etsushi"

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Land use change and El Niño-Southern Oscillation drive decadal carbon balance shifts in Southeast Asia
(2018-03) Kondo, Masayuki; Ichii, Kazuhito; Patra, Prabir K.; Canadell, Joseph G.; Poulter, Benjamin; Stitch, Stephen; Calle, Leonardo; Liu, Yi Y.; van Dijk, Albert I. J. M.; Saeki, Tazu; Saigusa, Nobuko; Friedlingstein, Pierre; Arneth, Almut; Harper, Anna B.; Jain, Atul K.; Kato, Etsushi; Koven, Charles D.; Li, Fang; Pugh, Thomas A. M.; Zaehle, Sonke; Wiltshire, Andy; Chevallier, Frederic; Maki, Takashi; Nakamura, Takashi; Niwa, Yosuke; Rödenbeck, Christian
An integrated understanding of the biogeochemical consequences of climate extremes and land use changes is needed to constrain land-surface feedbacks to atmospheric CO2 from associated climate change. Past assessments of the global carbon balance have shown particularly high uncertainty in Southeast Asia. Here, we use a combination of model ensembles to show that intensified land use change made Southeast Asia a strong source of CO2 from the 1980s to 1990s, whereas the region was close to carbon neutral in the 2000s due to an enhanced CO2 fertilization effect and absence of moderate-to-strong El Niño events. Our findings suggest that despite ongoing deforestation, CO2 emissions were substantially decreased during the 2000s, largely owing to milder climate that restores photosynthetic capacity and suppresses peat and deforestation fire emissions. The occurrence of strong El Niño events after 2009 suggests that the region has returned to conditions of increased vulnerability of carbon stocks.
The terrestrial carbon budget of South and Southeast Asia
(2016-10) Cervarich, Matthew; Shu, Shijie; Jain, Atul K.; Arneth, Almut; Canadell, Josep; Friedlingstein, Pierre; Houghton, Richard A; Kato, Etsushi; Koven, Charles D.; Patra, Prabir K.; Poulter, Benjamin; Sitch, Stephen; Stocker, Benjamin D.; Viovy, Nicolas; Wiltshire, Andy; Zeng, Ning
Accomplishing the objective of the current climate policies will require establishing carbon budget and flux estimates in each region and county of the globe by comparing and reconciling multiple estimates including the observations and the results of top-down atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) inversions and bottom-up dynamic global vegetation models. With this in view, this study synthesizes the carbon source/sink due to net ecosystem productivity (NEP), land cover land use change (E-LUC), fires and fossil burning (E-FIRE) for the South Asia (SA), Southeast Asia (SEA) and South and Southeast Asia (SSEA = SA + SEA) and each country in these regions using the multiple top-down and bottom-up modeling results. The terrestrial net biome productivity (NBP = NEP - E-LUC - E-FIRE) calculated based on bottom-up models in combination with E-FIRE based on GFED4s data show net carbon sinks of 217 +/- 147, 10 +/- 55, and 227 +/- 279 TgC yr(-1) for SA, SEA, and SSEA. The top-down models estimated NBP net carbon sinks were 20 +/- 170, 4 +/- 90 and 24 +/- 180 TgC yr(-1). In comparison, regional emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels were 495, 275, and 770 TgC yr(-1), which are many times higher than the NBP sink estimates, suggesting that the contribution of the fossil fuel emissions to the carbon budget of SSEA results in a significant net carbon source during the 2000s. When considering both NBP and fossil fuel emissions for the individual countries within the regions, Bhutan and Laos were net carbon sinks and rest of the countries were net carbon source during the 2000s. The relative contributions of each of the fluxes (NBP, NEP, ELUC, and EFIRE, fossil fuel emissions) to a nation\'s net carbon flux varied greatly from country to country, suggesting a heterogeneous dominant carbon fluxes on the country-level throughout SSEA.