Carbon and Water Use Efficiencies: A Comparative Analysis of Ten Terrestrial Ecosystem Models under Changing Climate

El Masri, Bassil; Schwalm, Christopher; Huntzinger, Deborah N.; Mao, Jiafu; Shi, Xiaoying; Peng, Changhui; Fisher, Joshua B.; Jain, Atul K.; Tian, Hanqin; Poulter, Benjamin; Michalak, Anna M.

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-50808-7

Carbon and Water Use Efficiencies: A Comparative Analysis of Ten Terrestrial Ecosystem Models under Changing Climate

Journal Article · Fri Oct 11 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Scientific Reports

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-50808-7· OSTI ID:1648899

^[1]; Schwalm, Christopher ^[2]; Huntzinger, Deborah N. ^[3]; ^[4]; ^[4]; ^[5]; Fisher, Joshua B. ^[6]; ^[7]; ^[8]; ^[9]; ^[10]

Murrah State University, KY (United States)
Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, MA (United States); Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States)
Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States)
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Univ. of Quebec, Montreal, QC (Canada)
California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
Auburn Univ., AL (United States)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD (United States)
Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA (United States)

Terrestrial ecosystems carbon and water cycles are tightly coupled through photosynthesis and evapotranspiration processes. The ratios of carbon stored to carbon uptake and water loss to carbon gain are key ecophysiological indicators essential to assess the magnitude and response of the terrestrial plant to the changing climate. Here, we use estimates from 10 terrestrial ecosystem models to quantify the impacts of climate, atmospheric CO₂ concentration, and nitrogen (N) deposition on water use efficiency (WUE), and carbon use efficiency (CUE). We find that across models, WUE increases over the 20th Century particularly due to CO₂ fertilization and N deposition and compares favorably to experimental studies. Also, the results show a decrease in WUE with climate for the last 3 decades, in contrasts with up-scaled flux observations that demonstrate a constant WUE. Modeled WUE responds minimally to climate with modeled CUE exhibiting no clear trend across space and time. The divergence between simulated and observationally-constrained WUE and CUE is driven by modeled NPP and autotrophic respiration, nitrogen cycle, carbon allocation, and soil moisture dynamics in current ecosystem models. We suggest that carbon-modeling community needs to reexamine stomatal conductance schemes and the soil-vegetation interactions for more robust modeling of carbon and water cycles.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725

OSTI ID:: 1648899

Journal Information:: Scientific Reports, Journal Name: Scientific Reports Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 9; ISSN 2045-2322

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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