Spatially and temporally continuous estimates of annual total nitrogen deposition over North America, 1860-2013.

This report describes the North American Climate Integration and Diagnostics - Nitrogen Deposition Version 1 (NACID-NDEP1) database. The database contains estimates of annual total nitrogen (N) deposition for the purpose of supporting terrestrial ecosystem modelling in North America. It was constructed at 1-km resolution with coverage of Alaska, Canada, and the conterminous U.S., with continuous annual coverage from 1860 to 2013. Estimates were produced by acquiring and compiling best-available data sources: Wet N deposition was estimated from interpolation of monthly ammonium and nitrate concentration measurements and from grids of monthly precipitation. Dry N deposition was estimated from satellite measurements of ammonium and nitrogen oxides. Total N deposition for the pre-industrial era was derived from previous modelling studies. As these source datasets covered different time periods, several assumptions were required to produce a continuous record.

Relationships between individual-tree mortality and water-balance variables indicate positive trends in water stress-induced tree mortality across North America.

Accounting for water stress-induced tree mortality in forest productivity models remains a challenge due to uncertainty in stress tolerance of tree populations. In this study, logistic regression models were developed to assess species-specific relationships between probability of mortality (Pm ) and drought, drawing on 8.1 million observations of change in vital status (m) of individual trees across North America. Drought was defined by standardized (relative) values of soil water content (Ws,z ) and reference evapotranspiration (ETr,z ) at each field plot. The models additionally tested for interactions between the water-balance variables, aridity class of the site (AC), and estimated tree height (h). Considering drought improved model performance in 95 (80) per cent of the 64 tested species during calibration (cross-validation). On average, sensitivity to relative drought increased with site AC (i.e. aridity). Interaction between water-balance variables and estimated tree height indicated that drought sensitivity commonly decreased during early height development and increased during late height development, which may reflect expansion of the root system and decreasing whole-plant, leaf-specific hydraulic conductance, respectively. Across North America, predictions suggested that changes in the water balance caused mortality to increase from 1.1% yr-1 in 1951 to 2.0% yr-1 in 2014 (a net change of 0.9 ± 0.3% yr-1 ). Interannual variation in mortality also increased, driven by increasingly severe droughts in 1988, 1998, 2006, 2007 and 2012. With strong confidence, this study indicates that water stress is a common cause of tree mortality. With weak-to-moderate confidence, this study strengthens previous claims attributing positive trends in mortality to increasing levels of water stress. This 'learn-as-we-go' approach - defined by sampling rare drought events as they continue to intensify - will help to constrain the hydraulic limits of dominant tree species and the viability of boreal and temperate forest biomes under continued climate change.

Accelerating forest growth enhancement due to climate and atmospheric changes in British Colombia, Canada over 1956-2001.

Changes in climate and atmospheric CO2 and nitrogen (N) over the last several decades have induced significant effects on forest carbon (C) cycling. However, contributions of individual factors are largely unknown because of the lack of long observational data and the undifferentiating between intrinsic factors and external forces in current ecosystem models. Using over four decades (1956-2001) of forest inventory data at 3432 permanent samples in maritime and boreal regions of British Columbia (B.C.), Canada, growth enhancements were reconstructed and partitioned into contributions of climate, CO2 and N after removal of age effects. We found that climate change contributed a particularly large amount (over 70%) of the accumulated growth enhancement, while the remaining was attributed to CO2 and N, respectively. We suggest that climate warming is contributing a widespread growth enhancement in B.C.'s forests, but ecosystem models should consider CO2 and N fertilization effects to fully explain inventory-based observations.