Terrestrial ecosystems are essential for human life, as they provide several key services, such as food and water security, sequestration of anthropogenic CO2 and evaporative cooling. Healthy ecosystems perform photosynthesis, during which the plants’ stomata are open to take up CO2 and evaporate water into the atmosphere, thereby providing a cooling effect. At the Earth’s surface, all the energy that is available from solar radiation that is not used to evaporate water, is used to heat near-surface air. Thereby, ecosystems play a key role in connecting the energy and water balance.
The aim of this thesis is to study the relevance of water- versus energy-limited conditions and associated regime transitions for weather, climate and related extremes under climate change. In this data-driven analysis, a multitude of data streams is used. Using such a combination of data products provides a comprehensive perspective that allows to infer the role of limitations in individual data products by comparing results between them.