scholarly journals Biophsyical constraints on gross primary production by the terrestrial biosphere

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (20) ◽  
pp. 5987-6001 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Wang ◽  
I. C. Prentice ◽  
T. W. Davis

Abstract. Persistent divergences among the predictions of complex carbon-cycle models include differences in the sign as well as the magnitude of the response of global terrestrial primary production to climate change. Such problems with current models indicate an urgent need to reassess the principles underlying the environmental controls of primary production. The global patterns of annual and maximum monthly terrestrial gross primary production (GPP) by C3 plants are explored here using a simple first-principles model based on the light-use efficiency formalism and the Farquhar model for C3 photosynthesis. The model is driven by incident photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and remotely sensed green-vegetation cover, with additional constraints imposed by low-temperature inhibition and CO2 limitation. The ratio of leaf-internal to ambient CO2 concentration in the model responds to growing-season mean temperature, atmospheric dryness (indexed by the cumulative water deficit, Δ E) and elevation, based on an optimality theory. The greatest annual GPP is predicted for tropical moist forests, but the maximum (summer) monthly GPP can be as high, or higher, in boreal or temperate forests. These findings are supported by a new analysis of CO2 flux measurements. The explanation is simply based on the seasonal and latitudinal distribution of PAR combined with the physiology of photosynthesis. By successively imposing biophysical constraints, it is shown that partial vegetation cover – driven primarily by water shortage – represents the largest constraint on global GPP.

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 3209-3240 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Wang ◽  
I. C. Prentice ◽  
T. W. Davis

Abstract. Persistent divergences among the predictions of complex carbon cycle models include differences in the sign as well as the magnitude of the response of global terrestrial primary production to climate change. This and other problems with current models indicate an urgent need to re-assess the principles underlying the environmental controls of primary production. The global patterns of annual and maximum monthly terrestrial gross primary production (GPP) by C3 plants are explored here using a simple first-principles model based on the light-use efficiency formalism and the Farquhar model for C3 photosynthesis. The model is driven by incident photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and remotely sensed green vegetation cover, with additional constraints imposed by low-temperature inhibition and CO2 limitation. The ratio of leaf-internal to ambient CO2 concentration in the model responds to growing-season mean temperature, atmospheric dryness (indexed by the cumulative water deficit, ΔE) and elevation, based on optimality theory. The greatest annual GPP is predicted for tropical moist forests, but the maximum (summer) monthly GPP can be as high or higher in boreal or temperate forests. These findings are supported by a new analysis of CO2 flux measurements. The explanation is simply based on the seasonal and latitudinal distribution of PAR combined with the physiology of photosynthesis. By successively imposing biophysical constraints, it is shown that partial vegetation cover – driven primarily by water shortage – represents the largest constraint on global GPP.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenjia Cai ◽  
Iain Colin Prentice

<p>Terrestrial Gross Primary Production (GPP), the total amount of carbon taken up by terrestrial plants, is one of the largest fluxes in the global carbon cycle – and a key process governing the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to partly offset continuing anthropogenic CO<sub>2</sub> emissions. Accurate simulation of land carbon uptake and its response to environmental change is therefore essential for reliable future projections of the terrestrial carbon sink. However, there are still large uncertainties in the sensitivity of global GPP to environmental drivers. Here we use a recently developed and extensively tested generic model of GPP (the ‘P-model’), which uses satellite-derived green vegetation cover as an input, to simulate (a) trends in site-level GPP, as observed at eddy-covariance flux sites; (b) trends in global GPP, for comparison with independent geophysical estimates; and (c) quantitative spatial patterns of the sensitivity of grid-based GPP to green vegetation cover, vapour pressure deficit, temperature, solar radiation, soil moisture and atmospheric CO<sub>2.</sub></p>


2011 ◽  
Vol 151 (12) ◽  
pp. 1514-1528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua L. Kalfas ◽  
Xiangming Xiao ◽  
Diana X. Vanegas ◽  
Shashi B. Verma ◽  
Andrew E. Suyker

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Prior ◽  
Iain-Colin Prentice

<p>The volume of water entering the atmosphere through transpiration is thought to be greater than the flow of all rivers to the oceans. It makes up the majority of evapotranspiration (ET) and significantly contributes to rainfall and therefore also to surface water runoff. However, there is no consensus on how transpiration responds to a changing environment; or even as to whether it is increasing over time. Global transpiration estimates are most commonly made through the partitioning of ET models.  However, in many ET models, the dynamics of vegetation growth and associated impacts on evapotranspiration are overlooked. Therefore, global estimates of transpiration from climate models are poorly constrained, with large uncertainties especially in stomatal conductance.</p><p>The ‘P model’ (for Production) is a recently developed, ‘next-generation’ model for Gross Primary Production, GPP. Derived from biochemical process of plants, the P model is built upon the established standard model for photosynthesis – combined with optimality hypotheses for the adaptation and acclimation of key model parameters – to determine GPP. The P model has the potential to provide a coupled global carbon and water model that responds correctly to changing environmental conditions. It requires only elevation, CO2 concentration, incident solar radiation, vapour pressure deficit (VPD) and temperature as inputs, in addition to remotely sensed green vegetation cover (fAPAR). The key idea motivating this research is that by exploiting the coupling of land-atmosphere carbon and water exchanges through stomatal behaviour, it should be possible to develop a near real-time transpiration monitoring system in which fAPAR is a key input. The P-model provides the means to do this. Initial results will be shown for both transpiration and GPP, with validation at >100 eddy-covariance flux-tower sites.</p>


2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 429-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Albergel ◽  
J.-C. Calvet ◽  
A.-L. Gibelin ◽  
S. Lafont ◽  
J.-L. Roujean ◽  
...  

Abstract. In this work, a simple representation of the soil moisture effect on the ecosystem respiration is implemented into the A-gs version of the Interactions between Soil, Biosphere, and Atmosphere (ISBA) model. It results in an improvement of the modelled CO2 flux over a grassland, in southwestern France. The former temperature-only dependent respiration formulation used in ISBA-A-gs is not able to model the limitation of the respiration under dry conditions. In addition to soil moisture and soil temperature, the only parameter required in this formulation is the ecosystem respiration parameter Re25. It can be estimated by the mean of eddy covariance measurements of turbulent nighttime CO2 flux (i.e. ecosystem respiration). The resulting correlation between observed and modelled net ecosystem exchange is r2=0.63 with a bias of −2.18 μmol m−2 s−1. It is shown that when CO2 observations are not available, it is possible to use a more complex model, able to represent the heterotrophic respiration and all the components of the autotrophic respiration, to estimate Re25 with similar results. The modelled ecosystem respiration estimates are provided by the Carbon Cycle (CC) version of ISBA (ISBA-CC). ISBA-CC is a version of ISBA able to simulate all the respiration components whereas ISBA-A-gs uses a single equation for ecosystem respiration. ISBA-A-gs is easier to handle and more convenient than ISBA-CC for practical use in atmospheric or hydrological models. Surface water and energy flux observations as well as gross primary production (GPP) estimates are compared with model outputs. The dependence of GPP to air temperature is investigated. The observed GPP is less sensitive to temperature than the modelled GPP. Finally, the simulations of the ISBA-A-gs model are analysed over a seven year period (2001–2007). Modelled soil moisture and leaf area index (LAI) are confronted with the observed root-zone soil moisture content (m3 m−3), and with LAI estimates derived from surface reflectance measurements.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 2725-2746
Author(s):  
Yi Zheng ◽  
Ruoque Shen ◽  
Yawen Wang ◽  
Xiangqian Li ◽  
Shuguang Liu ◽  
...  

Abstract. Satellite-based models have been widely used to simulate vegetation gross primary production (GPP) at the site, regional, or global scales in recent years. However, accurately reproducing the interannual variations in GPP remains a major challenge, and the long-term changes in GPP remain highly uncertain. In this study, we generated a long-term global GPP dataset at 0.05∘ latitude by 0.05∘ longitude and 8 d interval by revising a light use efficiency model (i.e., EC-LUE model). In the revised EC-LUE model, we integrated the regulations of several major environmental variables: atmospheric CO2 concentration, radiation components, and atmospheric vapor pressure deficit (VPD). These environmental variables showed substantial long-term changes, which could greatly impact the global vegetation productivity. Eddy covariance (EC) measurements at 95 towers from the FLUXNET2015 dataset, covering nine major ecosystem types around the globe, were used to calibrate and validate the model. In general, the revised EC-LUE model could effectively reproduce the spatial, seasonal, and annual variations in the tower-estimated GPP at most sites. The revised EC-LUE model could explain 71 % of the spatial variations in annual GPP over 95 sites. At more than 95 % of the sites, the correlation coefficients (R2) of seasonal changes between tower-estimated and model-simulated GPP are larger than 0.5. Particularly, the revised EC-LUE model improved the model performance in reproducing the interannual variations in GPP, and the averaged R2 between annual mean tower-estimated and model-simulated GPP is 0.44 over all 55 sites with observations longer than 5 years, which is significantly higher than those of the original EC-LUE model (R2=0.36) and other LUE models (R2 ranged from 0.06 to 0.30 with an average value of 0.16). At the global scale, GPP derived from light use efficiency models, machine learning models, and process-based biophysical models shows substantial differences in magnitude and interannual variations. The revised EC-LUE model quantified the mean global GPP from 1982 to 2017 as 106.2±2.9 Pg C yr−1 with the trend 0.15 Pg C yr−1. Sensitivity analysis indicated that GPP simulated by the revised EC-LUE model was sensitive to atmospheric CO2 concentration, VPD, and radiation. Over the period of 1982–2017, the CO2 fertilization effect on the global GPP (0.22±0.07 Pg C yr−1) could be partly offset by increased VPD (-0.17±0.06 Pg C yr−1). The long-term changes in the environmental variables could be well reflected in global GPP. Overall, the revised EC-LUE model is able to provide a reliable long-term estimate of global GPP. The GPP dataset is available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8942336.v3 (Zheng et al., 2019).


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milan Flach ◽  
Alexander Brenning ◽  
Fabian Gans ◽  
Markus Reichstein ◽  
Sebastian Sippel ◽  
...  

Abstract. Drought and heat events affect the uptake and sequestration of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems. Factors such as the duration, timing and intensity of extreme events influence the magnitude of impacts on ecosystem processes such as gross primary production (GPP), i.e. the ecosystem uptake of CO2. Preceding soil moisture depletion may exacerbate these impacts. However, some vegetation types may be more resilient to climate extremes than others. This effect is insufficiently understood at the global scale and is the focus of this study. Using a global upscaled product of GPP that scales up in-situ land CO2 flux observations with global satellite remote sensing, we study the impact of climate extremes at the global scale. We find that GPP in grasslands and agricultural areas is generally reduced during heat and drought events. However, we also find that forests, if considered globally, appear not in general to be particularly sensitive to droughts and heat events that occurred during the analyzed period or even show increased GPP values during these events. On the one hand, this is in many cases plausible, e.g. when no negative preconditioning has occurred. On the other hand, however, this may also reflect a lack of sensitivity in current remote sensing derived GPP products to the effects of droughts and heatwaves. The overall picture calls for a differentiated consideration of different land cover types in the assessments of risks of climate extremes for ecosystem functioning.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-53
Author(s):  
Milan Flach ◽  
Alexander Brenning ◽  
Fabian Gans ◽  
Markus Reichstein ◽  
Sebastian Sippel ◽  
...  

Abstract. Drought and heat events affect the uptake and sequestration of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems. Factors such as the duration, timing, and intensity of extreme events influence the magnitude of impacts on ecosystem processes such as gross primary production (GPP), i.e., the ecosystem uptake of CO2. Preceding soil moisture depletion may exacerbate these impacts. However, some vegetation types may be more resilient to climate extremes than others. This effect is insufficiently understood at the global scale and is the focus of this study. Using a global upscaled product of GPP that scales up in situ land CO2 flux observations with global satellite remote sensing, we study the impact of climate extremes at the global scale. We find that GPP in grasslands and agricultural areas is generally reduced during heat and drought events. However, we also find that forests, if considered globally, appear in general to not be particularly sensitive to droughts and heat events that occurred during the analyzed period or even show increased GPP values during these events. On the one hand, normal-to-increased GPP values are in many cases plausible, e.g., when conditions prior to the event have been particularly positive. On the other hand, however, normal-to-increased GPP values in forests may also reflect a lack of sensitivity in current remote-sensing-derived GPP products to the effects of droughts and heatwaves. The overall picture calls for a differentiated consideration of different land cover types in the assessments of risks of climate extremes for ecosystem functioning.


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