Expert elicitation of state shifts and divergent sensitivities to climate warming across northern ecosystems

Northern regions are warming faster than the rest of the globe. It is difficult to predict ecosystem responses to warming because the thermal sensitivity of their biophysical components varies. Here, we present an analysis of the authors’ expert judgment regarding the sensitivity of six ecosystem co...

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Published in:Communications earth & environment Vol. 5; no. 1; pp. 624 - 15
Main Authors: Saulnier-Talbot, Émilie, Duchesne, Éliane, Antoniades, Dermot, Arseneault, Dominique, Barnard, Christine, Berteaux, Dominique, Bhiry, Najat, Bouchard, Frédéric, Boudreau, Stéphane, Cazelles, Kevin, Comte, Jérôme, Corbeil-Robitaille, Madeleine-Zoé, Côté, Steeve D., Couture, Raoul-Marie, de Lafontaine, Guillaume, Domine, Florent, Fauteux, Dominique, Fortier, Daniel, Garneau, Michelle, Gauthier, Gilles, Gravel, Dominique, Laurion, Isabelle, Lavoie, Martin, Lecomte, Nicolas, Legagneux, Pierre, Lévesque, Esther, Naud, Marie-José, Paquette, Michel, Payette, Serge, Pienitz, Reinhard, Rautio, Milla, Roy, Alexandre, Royer, Alain, Simard, Martin, Vincent, Warwick F., Bêty, Joël
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 25.10.2024
Nature Publishing Group
Springer Nature
Nature Portfolio
Subjects:
631/158/2165
704/172/4081
Air temperature
Aquatic ecosystems
Climate change
Climate prediction
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Ecosystem integrity
Ecosystems
Environment
Environmental Sciences
Global warming
Integrity
Lakes
Latitude
Peatlands
Permafrost
Response time
Sensitivity analysis
Snowpack
Vegetation
Vertebrates
ISSN:2662-4435, 2662-4435
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Northern regions are warming faster than the rest of the globe. It is difficult to predict ecosystem responses to warming because the thermal sensitivity of their biophysical components varies. Here, we present an analysis of the authors’ expert judgment regarding the sensitivity of six ecosystem components – permafrost, peatlands, lakes, snowpack, vegetation, and endothermic vertebrates – across northern landscapes ranging from boreal to polar biomes. We identified 28 discontinuous component states across a 3700 km latitudinal gradient in northeastern North America and quantified sensitivity as the transition time from an initial to a contrasting state following a theoretical step change increase in mean annual air temperature of 5 °C. We infer that multiple interconnected state shifts are likely to occur within a narrow subarctic latitudinal band at timescales of 10 to more than 100 years, and response times decrease with latitude. Response times differ between components and across latitudes, which is likely to impair the integrity of ecosystems. Warming-induced changes in permafrost, peatlands, lakes, snowpack, vegetation, and vertebrates could impact northern ecosystem integrity, with different response times across components and latitude, according to an expert assessment of sensitivity in northern landscapes.
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ISSN:2662-4435
2662-4435
DOI:10.1038/s43247-024-01791-z