Widespread underestimation of rain-induced soil carbon emissions from global drylands

Dryland carbon fluxes, particularly those driven by ecosystem respiration, are highly sensitive to water availability and rain pulses. However, the magnitude of rain-induced carbon emissions remains unclear globally. Here we quantify the impact of rain-pulse events on the carbon balance of global drylands and characterize their spatiotemporal controls. Using eddy-covariance observations of carbon, water and energy fluxes from 34 dryland sites worldwide, we produce an inventory of over 1,800 manually identified rain-induced CO2 pulse events. Based on this inventory, a machine learning algorithm is developed to automatically detect rain-induced CO2 pulse events. Our findings show that existing partitioning methods underestimate ecosystem respiration and photosynthesis by up to 30% during rain-pulse events, which annually contribute 16.9 ± 2.8% of ecosystem respiration and 9.6 ± 2.2% of net ecosystem productivity. We show that the carbon loss intensity correlates most strongly with annual productivity, aridity and soil pH. Finally, we identify a universal decay rate of rain-induced CO2 pulses and use it to bias-correct respiration estimates. Our research highlights the importance of rain-induced carbon emissions for the carbon balance of global drylands and suggests that ecosystem models may largely underrepresent the influence of rain pulses on the carbon cycle of drylands.

NGUYEN Ngoc B.;  MIGLIAVACCA Mirco;  BASSIOUNI Maoya;  BALDOCCHI Dennis;  GHERARDI Laureano;  GREEN Julia;  PAPALE Dario;  REICHSTEIN Markus;  COHRS Kai-Hendrik;  CESCATTI Alessandro;  NGUYEN Tuan Dung;  NGUYEN Hoang;  NGUYEN Quang Minh;  KEENAN Trevor F.; 

2025-11-05

NATURE PORTFOLIO

JRC139756

1752-0908 (online),   

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01754-9,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC139756,   

10.1038/s41561-025-01754-9 (online),