Quantifying albedo impact and radiative forcing of management practices in European wheat cropping systems

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Ke Yu - , Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (Author)
  • Yang Su - , Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Université Paris-Saclay, Ecole Normale Superieure (Author)
  • Philippe Ciais - , Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (Author)
  • Ronny Lauerwald - , Université Paris-Saclay, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) (Author)
  • Eric Ceschia - , Université de Toulouse (Author)
  • David Makowski - , Université Paris-Saclay (Author)
  • Yidi Xu - , Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (Author)
  • Ezzeddine Abbessi - , Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (Author)
  • Hassan Bazzi - , Université Paris-Saclay, Atos France (Author)
  • Tiphaine Tallec - , Université de Toulouse (Author)
  • Aurore Brut - , Université de Toulouse (Author)
  • Bernard Heinesch - , University of Liege (Author)
  • Christian Brümmer - , Johann Heinrich von Thunen Institute (Author)
  • Marius Schmidt - , Jülich Research Centre (Author)
  • Manuel Acosta - , Global Change Research Institute (Author)
  • Pauline Buysse - , Université Paris-Saclay (Author)
  • Thomas Gruenwald - , Chair of Meteorology (Author)
  • Daniel S. Goll - , Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (Author)

Abstract

Management practices that increase the surface albedo of cultivated land could mitigate climate change, with similar effectiveness to practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or favor natural CO2 sequestration. Yet, the efficiency of such practices is barely quantified. In this study, we quantified the impacts of seven different management practices on the surface albedo of winter wheat fields (nitrogen fertilizer, herbicide, fungicide, sowing, harvest, tillage, and crop residues) by analyzing observed daily albedo dynamics from eight European flux-tower sites with interpretable machine learning. We found that management practices have significant influences on surface albedo dynamics compared with climate and soil conditions. The nitrogen fertilizer application has the largest effect among the seven practices as it increases surface albedo by 0.015 ± 0.004 during the first two months after application, corresponding to a radiative forcing of −4.39 ± 1.22 W m−2. Herbicide induces a modest albedo decrease of 0.005 ± 0.002 over 150 d after application by killing weeds in the fallow period only, resulting in a magnitude of radiative forcing of 1.33 ± 1.06 W m−2 which is higher than radiative forcing of other practices in the same period. The substantial temporal evolution of the albedo impacts of management practices increases uncertainties in the estimated albedo-mediated climate impacts of management practices. Although these albedo effects are smaller than published estimates of the greenhouse gas-mediated biogeochemical practices, they are nevertheless significant and should thus be accounted for in climate impact assessments.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number074042
JournalEnvironmental Research Letters
Volume19
Issue number7
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2024
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Scopus 85197345030
ORCID /0000-0003-2263-0073/work/163765950

Keywords

Keywords

  • management practices, radiative forcing, surface albedo, temporal evolution