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Abstract

Changes in high-latitude forests have strong implications to regional and global climate, and water and carbon cycling. Shifts in canopy cover (i.e., abundance and shifts between evergreen and deciduous species) will alter albedo, carbon, and water fluxes. For example, many studies suggest that increasing fire frequency will shift conifer-dominated forests to deciduous forests. Deciduous trees transpire 21–25% of available snowmelt water, while coniferous trees transpire <1%. A shift to deciduous trees therefore reduces groundwater recharge, and potentially leads to more storms and lightning-induced fires. All these climate-related interactions will affect plant competition, survival, and ultimately community distribution and carbon storage. To be able to accurately predict and model these complex ecological processes we are using a new dynamic vegetation model (FATES; Functionally-Assembled Terrestrial Ecosystem Simulator) that is coupled to ELMv1, the land surface model in E3SM. We use FATES to quantify the impacts on water cycling (e.g., water use efficiency, latent heat, soil water storage) and carbon fluxes (NEE) under transitions between boreal evergreen and deciduous trees.

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