Michalak Anna M.

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Michalak
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Anna M.
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  • Preprint
    The terrestrial biosphere as a net source of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere
    ( 2015-12-21) Tian, Hanqin ; Lu, Chaoqun ; Ciais, Philippe ; Michalak, Anna M. ; Canadell, Josep G. ; Saikawa, Eri ; Huntzinger, Deborah N. ; Gurney, Kevin R. ; Sitch, Stephen ; Zhang, Bowen ; Yang, Jia ; Bousquet, Philippe ; Bruhwiler, Lori ; Chen, Guangsheng ; Dlugokencky, Edward J. ; Friedlingstein, Pierre ; Melillo, Jerry M. ; Pan, Shufen ; Poulter, Benjamin ; Prinn, Ronald G. ; Saunois, Marielle ; Schwalm, Christopher R. ; Wofsy, Steven C.
    The terrestrial biosphere can release or absorb the greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) and therefore plays an important role in regulating atmospheric composition and climate1. Anthropogenic activities such as land use change, agricultural and waste management have altered terrestrial biogenic greenhouse gas fluxes and the resulting increases in methane and nitrous oxide emissions in particular can contribute to climate warming2,3. The terrestrial biogenic fluxes of individual greenhouse gases have been studied extensively4-6, but the net biogenic greenhouse gas balance as a result of anthropogenic activities and its effect on the climate system remains uncertain. Here we use bottom-up (BU: e.g., inventory, statistical extrapolation of local flux measurements, process-based modeling) and top-down (TD: atmospheric inversions) approaches to quantify the global net biogenic greenhouse gas balance between 1981-2010 as a result of anthropogenic activities and its effect on the climate system. We find that the cumulative warming capacity of concurrent biogenic CH4 and N2O emissions is about a factor of 2 larger than the cooling effect resulting from the global land CO2 uptake in the 2000s. This results in a net positive cumulative impact of the three GHGs on the planetary energy budget, with a best estimate of 3.9±3.8 Pg CO2 eq/yr (TD) and 5.4±4.8 Pg CO2 eq/yr (BU) based on the GWP 100 metric (global warming potential on a 100-year time horizon). Our findings suggest that a reduction in agricultural CH4 and N2O emissions in particular in Southern Asia may help mitigate climate change.
  • Article
    Detectability of CO2 flux signals by a space-based lidar mission
    (John Wiley & Sons, 2015-03-11) Hammerling, Dorit M. ; Kawa, S. Randolph ; Schaefer, Kevin ; Doney, Scott C. ; Michalak, Anna M.
    Satellite observations of carbon dioxide (CO2) offer novel and distinctive opportunities for improving our quantitative understanding of the carbon cycle. Prospective observations include those from space-based lidar such as the active sensing of CO2 emissions over nights, days, and seasons (ASCENDS) mission. Here we explore the ability of such a mission to detect regional changes in CO2 fluxes. We investigate these using three prototypical case studies, namely, the thawing of permafrost in the northern high latitudes, the shifting of fossil fuel emissions from Europe to China, and changes in the source/sink characteristics of the Southern Ocean. These three scenarios were used to design signal detection studies to investigate the ability to detect the unfolding of these scenarios compared to a baseline scenario. Results indicate that the ASCENDS mission could detect the types of signals investigated in this study, with the caveat that the study is based on some simplifying assumptions. The permafrost thawing flux perturbation is readily detectable at a high level of significance. The fossil fuel emission detectability is directly related to the strength of the signal and the level of measurement noise. For a nominal (lower) fossil fuel emission signal, only the idealized noise-free instrument test case produces a clearly detectable signal, while experiments with more realistic noise levels capture the signal only in the higher (exaggerated) signal case. For the Southern Ocean scenario, differences due to the natural variability in the El Niño–Southern Oscillation climatic mode are primarily detectable as a zonal increase.
  • Article
    Precision requirements for space-based XCO2 data
    (American Geophysical Union, 2007-05-26) Miller, C. E. ; Crisp, D. ; DeCola, P. L. ; Olsen, S. C. ; Randerson, James T. ; Michalak, Anna M. ; Alkhaled, A. ; Rayner, Peter ; Jacob, Daniel J. ; Suntharalingam, Parvadha ; Jones, D. B. A. ; Denning, A. S. ; Nicholls, M. E. ; Doney, Scott C. ; Pawson, S. ; Boesch, H. ; Connor, B. J. ; Fung, Inez Y. ; O'Brien, D. ; Salawitch, R. J. ; Sander, S. P. ; Sen, B. ; Tans, Pieter P. ; Toon, G. C. ; Wennberg, Paul O. ; Wofsy, Steven C. ; Yung, Y. L. ; Law, R. M.
    Precision requirements are determined for space-based column-averaged CO2 dry air mole fraction (XCO2) data. These requirements result from an assessment of spatial and temporal gradients in XCO2, the relationship between XCO2 precision and surface CO2 flux uncertainties inferred from inversions of the XCO2 data, and the effects of XCO2 biases on the fidelity of CO2 flux inversions. Observational system simulation experiments and synthesis inversion modeling demonstrate that the Orbiting Carbon Observatory mission design and sampling strategy provide the means to achieve these XCO2 data precision requirements.
  • Article
    Evaluation of simulated soil carbon dynamics in Arctic-Boreal ecosystems
    (IOP Publishing, 2020-02-07) Huntzinger, Deborah N. ; Schaefer, Kevin ; Schwalm, Christopher R. ; Fisher, Joshua B. ; Hayes, Daniel ; Stofferahn, Eric ; Carey, Joanna C. ; Michalak, Anna M. ; Wei, Yaxing ; Jain, Atul K. ; Kolus, Hannah ; Mao, Jiafu ; Poulter, Benjamin ; Shi, Xiaoying ; Tang, Jianwu ; Tian, Hanqin
    Given the magnitude of soil carbon stocks in northern ecosystems, and the vulnerability of these stocks to climate warming, land surface models must accurately represent soil carbon dynamics in these regions. We evaluate soil carbon stocks and turnover rates, and the relationship between soil carbon loss with soil temperature and moisture, from an ensemble of eleven global land surface models. We focus on the region of NASA's Arctic-Boreal vulnerability experiment (ABoVE) in North America to inform data collection and model development efforts. Models exhibit an order of magnitude difference in estimates of current total soil carbon stocks, generally under- or overestimating the size of current soil carbon stocks by greater than 50 PgC. We find that a model's soil carbon stock at steady-state in 1901 is the prime driver of its soil carbon stock a hundred years later—overwhelming the effect of environmental forcing factors like climate. The greatest divergence between modeled and observed soil carbon stocks is in regions dominated by peat and permafrost soils, suggesting that models are failing to capture the frozen soil carbon dynamics of permafrost regions. Using a set of functional benchmarks to test the simulated relationship of soil respiration to both soil temperature and moisture, we find that although models capture the observed shape of the soil moisture response of respiration, almost half of the models examined show temperature sensitivities, or Q10 values, that are half of observed. Significantly, models that perform better against observational constraints of respiration or carbon stock size do not necessarily perform well in terms of their functional response to key climatic factors like changing temperature. This suggests that models may be arriving at the right result, but for the wrong reason. The results of this work can help to bridge the gap between data and models by both pointing to the need to constrain initial carbon pool sizes, as well as highlighting the importance of incorporating functional benchmarks into ongoing, mechanistic modeling activities such as those included in ABoVE.