Anthropogenic global warming caused by increased atmospheric carbon forcing is expected to cause a decrease in peak snow water equivalent (SWE), shift the timing of snowmelt to earlier in the year, and lead to slower melt rates in the mountains of the Western United States. High-elevation forests in mountainous terrain represent a critical carbon sink. Understanding the ecohydrology of subalpine forests is crucial for assessing the health of these sinks. The Niwot Ridge Long Term Ecological Research station, located at 3000 m amsl in the southern Rocky Mountains of Colorado, receives just over 1 m of annual precipitation mostly as snow, supporting a persistent seasonal snowpack in alpine and subalpine ecosystems. Previous studies show that longer growing season length is correlated with shallower snowpack, earlier spring onset and reduced net CO2 uptake. Co-located sensors provide over 20 years of continuous SWE and eddy covariance (EC) data, allowing for robust direct comparison of snow and carbon phenomena in a high-elevation catchment. Linear regression and time series analysis was performed on snowmelt, meteorological, phenological and ecosystem productivity variables. Peak productivity is correlated with peak SWE (R2=0.54) and further correlated with snowmelt disappearance (R2=0.38) and the timing of spring growth onset (R2=0.30). Timing of both peak productivity and spring growth onset are correlated with snowmelt and meteorological variables. A multivariable regression of meteorological variables, timing of spring growth onset, a temporal trend, and snowmelt rate and explains 94% of interannual variability in the timing of peak forest productivity. These results develop support and introduce new evidence for the existing studies of Niwot Ridge ecohydrology. Future work will investigate the meteorological and hydrological record extending back to 1979 and the long-term trends in snowmelt and forest productivity.

The Western US accounts for a significant amount of the forested biomass and carbon uptake within the conterminous United States. Warming and drying climate trends combined with a legacy of fire suppression have left Western forests particularly vulnerable to disturbance from insects, fire and drought mortality. These challenging conditions may significantly weaken this region’s ability to uptake carbon from the atmosphere and warrant continued monitoring. Traditional methods of carbon monitoring are limited by the complex terrain of the Rocky Mountains that lead to complex atmospheric flows coupled with heterogeneous climate and soil conditions. Recently, solar induced fluorescence (SIF) has been found to be a strong indicator of GPP, and with the increased availability of remotely-sensed SIF, provides an opportunity to estimate GPP and ecosystem function across the Western US. Although the SIF-GPP empirical linkage is strong, the mechanistic understanding between SIF and GPP is lacking, and ultimately depends upon changes in leaf chemistry that convert absorbed radiation into photochemistry, heat (via non-photochemical quenching (NPQ)), leaf damage or SIF. Understanding of the mechanistic detail is necessary to fully leverage observed SIF to constrain model estimates of GPP and improve representation of ecosystem processes. Here, we include an improved fluorescence model within CLM 4.5 to simulate seasonal changes in SIF at a sub-alpine forest in Colorado. We find that when the model includes a representation of sustained NPQ the simulated fluorescence is much closer to the seasonal pattern of SIF observed from the GOME-2 satellite platform and a custom tower mounted spectrometer system. We also find that average air temperature may be used as a predictor of sustained NPQ when observations are not available. This relationship to air temperature is promising because it may allow for efficient spatial upscaling of SIF simulations, given widespread availability of temperature data, but not NPQ observations. Further improvements to the fluorescence model should focus upon distinguishing between the impacts of NPQ versus the de-activation of photosystems brought on by high-stress environmental conditions.