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Research article2014Peer reviewedOpen access

Effect of Climate Change on Soil Temperature in Swedish Boreal Forests

Jungqvist, Gunnar; Oni, Stephen; Teutschbein, Claudia; Futter, Martyn

Abstract

Complex non-linear relationships exist between air and soil temperature responses to climate change. Despite its influence on hydrological and biogeochemical processes, soil temperature has received less attention in climate impact studies. Here we present and apply an empirical soil temperature model to four forest sites along a climatic gradient of Sweden. Future air and soil temperature were projected using an ensemble of regional climate models. Annual average air and soil temperatures were projected to increase, but complex dynamics were projected on a seasonal scale. Future changes in winter soil temperature were strongly dependent on projected snow cover. At the northernmost site, winter soil temperatures changed very little due to insulating effects of snow cover but southern sites with little or no snow cover showed the largest projected winter soil warming. Projected soil warming was greatest in the spring (up to 4 degrees C) in the north, suggesting earlier snowmelt, extension of growing season length and possible northward shifts in the boreal biome. This showed that the projected effects of climate change on soil temperature in snow dominated regions are complex and general assumptions of future soil temperature responses to climate change based on air temperature alone are inadequate and should be avoided in boreal regions.

Published in

PLoS ONE
2014, Volume: 9, number: 4, article number: e93957
Publisher: PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE

      SLU Authors

      • Associated SLU-program

      SLU Future Forests

      Sustainable Development Goals

      SDG13 Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

      UKÄ Subject classification

      Climate Research

      Publication identifier

      DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0093957

      Permanent link to this page (URI)

      https://res.slu.se/id/publ/64210