H34D-04
Global Warming, Drought and a Greening Planet
Wednesday, 16 December 2015: 16:45
3022 (Moscone West)
Randall J Donohue1, Michael L Roderick2, Tim McVicar1, Graham D Farquhar3 and Yuting Yang1, (1)CSIRO Land and Water Canberra, Canberra, Australia, (2)Australian National University, Research School of Earth Sciences and Research School of Biology, Canberra, Australia, (3)Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
Abstract:
A commonly held perception is that global warming will result in a drier planet with a greater occurrence of droughts. Across water-limited environments, droughts result in declines in vegetation productivity and cover. However, observations indicate that productivity and cover have, on average, been increasing across the globe’s water-limited regions. This raises the question of what the relationship is between drought and vegetation, and how might vegetation-water dynamics change as global warming progresses. Of particular interest is the role that CO2 fertilisation has in changing landscape-scale vegetation water use. We will present both observation- and model-based analyses of the possible CO2-driven changes in vegetation cover, productivity and water use.
