Ren Wei

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Ren
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Wei
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  • Article
    China's terrestrial carbon balance : contributions from multiple global change factors
    (American Geophysical Union, 2011-03-31) Tian, Hanqin ; Melillo, Jerry M. ; Lu, Chaoqun ; Kicklighter, David W. ; Liu, Mingliang ; Ren, Wei ; Xu, Xiaofeng ; Chen, Guangsheng ; Zhang, Chi ; Pan, Shufen ; Liu, Jiyuan ; Running, Steven W.
    The magnitude, spatial, and temporal patterns of the terrestrial carbon sink and the underlying mechanisms remain uncertain and need to be investigated. China is important in determining the global carbon balance in terms of both carbon emission and carbon uptake. Of particular importance to climate-change policy and carbon management is the ability to evaluate the relative contributions of multiple environmental factors to net carbon source and sink in China's terrestrial ecosystems. Here the effects of multiple environmental factors (climate, atmospheric CO2, ozone pollution, nitrogen deposition, nitrogen fertilizer application, and land cover/land use change) on net carbon balance in terrestrial ecosystems of China for the period 1961–2005 were modeled with newly developed, detailed historical information of these changes. For this period, results from two models indicated a mean land sink of 0.21 Pg C per year, with a multimodel range from 0.18 to 0.24 Pg C per year. The models' results are consistent with field observations and national inventory data and provide insights into the biogeochemical mechanisms responsible for the carbon sink in China's land ecosystems. In the simulations, nitrogen deposition and fertilizer applications together accounted for 61 percent of the net carbon storage in China's land ecosystems in recent decades, with atmospheric CO2 increases and land use also functioning to stimulate carbon storage. The size of the modeled carbon sink over the period 1961–2005 was reduced by both ozone pollution and climate change. The modeled carbon sink in response to per unit nitrogen deposition shows a leveling off or a decline in some areas in recent years, although the nitrogen input levels have continued to increase.
  • Article
    Net exchanges of CO2, CH4, and N2O between China's terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere and their contributions to global climate warming
    (American Geophysical Union, 2011-05-13) Tian, Hanqin ; Xu, Xiaofeng ; Lu, Chaoqun ; Liu, Mingliang ; Ren, Wei ; Chen, Guangsheng ; Melillo, Jerry M. ; Liu, Jiyuan
    China's terrestrial ecosystems have been recognized as an atmospheric CO2 sink; however, it is uncertain whether this sink can alleviate global warming given the fluxes of CH4 and N2O. In this study, we used a process-based ecosystem model driven by multiple environmental factors to examine the net warming potential resulting from net exchanges of CO2, CH4, and N2O between China's terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere during 1961–2005. In the past 45 years, China's terrestrial ecosystems were found to sequestrate CO2 at a rate of 179.3 Tg C yr−1 with a 95% confidence range of (62.0 Tg C yr−1, 264.9 Tg C yr−1) while emitting CH4 and N2O at rates of 8.3 Tg C yr−1 with a 95% confidence range of (3.3 Tg C yr−1, 12.4 Tg C yr−1) and 0.6 Tg N yr−1 with a 95% confidence range of (0.2 Tg N yr−1, 1.1 Tg N yr−1), respectively. When translated into global warming potential, it is highly possible that China's terrestrial ecosystems mitigated global climate warming at a rate of 96.9 Tg CO2eq yr−1 (1 Tg = 1012 g), substantially varying from a source of 766.8 Tg CO2eq yr−1 in 1997 to a sink of 705.2 Tg CO2eq yr−1 in 2002. The southeast and northeast of China slightly contributed to global climate warming; while the northwest, north, and southwest of China imposed cooling effects on the climate system. Paddy land, followed by natural wetland and dry cropland, was the largest contributor to national warming potential; forest, followed by woodland and grassland, played the most significant role in alleviating climate warming. Our simulated results indicate that CH4 and N2O emissions offset approximately 84.8% of terrestrial CO2 sink in China during 1961–2005. This study suggests that the relieving effects of China's terrestrial ecosystems on climate warming through sequestering CO2 might be gradually offset by increasing N2O emission, in combination with CH4 emission.
  • Article
    Food benefit and climate warming potential of nitrogen fertilizer uses in China
    (IOP Publishing, 2012-10-31) Tian, Hanqin ; Lu, Chaoqun ; Melillo, Jerry M. ; Ren, Wei ; Huang, Yao ; Xu, Xiaofeng ; Liu, Mingliang ; Zhang, Chi ; Chen, Guangsheng ; Pan, Shufen ; Liu, Jiyuan ; Reilly, John M.
    Chemical nitrogen (N) fertilizer has long been used to help meet the increasing food demands in China, the top N fertilizer consumer in the world. Growing concerns have been raised on the impacts of N fertilizer uses on food security and climate change, which is lack of quantification. Here we use a carbon–nitrogen (C–N) coupled ecosystem model, to quantify the food benefit and climate consequence of agronomic N addition in China over the six decades from 1949 to 2008. Results show that N fertilizer-induced crop yield and soil C sequestration had reached their peaks, while nitrous oxide (N2O) emission continued rising as N was added. Since the early 2000s, stimulation of excessive N fertilizer uses to global climate warming through N2O emission was estimated to outweigh their climate benefit in increasing CO2 uptake. The net warming effect of N fertilizer uses, mainly centered in the North China Plain and the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River Basin, with N2O emission completely counteracting or even exceeding, by more than a factor of 2, the CO2 sink. If we reduced the current N fertilizer level by 60% in 'over-fertilized' areas, N2O emission would substantially decrease without significantly influencing crop yield and soil C sequestration.
  • Article
    Effects of tropospheric ozone pollution on net primary productivity and carbon storage in terrestrial ecosystems of China
    (American Geophysical Union, 2007-11-17) Ren, Wei ; Tian, Hanqin ; Liu, Mingliang ; Zhang, Chi ; Chen, Guangsheng ; Pan, Shufen ; Felzer, Benjamin S. ; Xu, Xiaofeng
    We investigated the potential effects of elevated ozone (O3) along with climate variability, increasing CO2, and land use change on net primary productivity (NPP) and carbon storage in China's terrestrial ecosystems for the period 1961–2000 with a process-based Dynamic Land Ecosystem Model (DLEM) forced by the gridded data of historical tropospheric O3 and other environmental factors. The simulated results showed that elevated O3 could result in a mean 4.5% reduction in NPP and 0.9% reduction in total carbon storage nationwide from 1961 to 2000. The reduction of carbon storage varied from 0.1 Tg C to 312 Tg C (a decreased rate ranging from 0.2% to 6.9%) among plant functional types. The effects of tropospheric O3 on NPP were strongest in east-central China. Significant reductions in NPP occurred in northeastern and central China where a large proportion of cropland is distributed. The O3 effects on carbon fluxes and storage are dependent upon other environmental factors. Therefore direct and indirect effects of O3, as well as interactive effects with other environmental factors, should be taken into account in order to accurately assess the regional carbon budget in China. The results showed that the adverse influences of increasing O3 concentration across China on NPP could be an important disturbance factor on carbon storage in the near future, and the improvement of air quality in China could enhance the capability of China's terrestrial ecosystems to sequester more atmospheric CO2. Our estimation of O3 impacts on NPP and carbon storage in China, however, must be used with caution because of the limitation of historical tropospheric O3 data and other uncertainties associated with model parameters and field experiments.