Modeling suggests fossil fuel emissions have been driving increased land carbon uptake since the turn of the 20th Century

Schwalm, Christopher R.; Huntzinger, Deborah N.; Michalak, Anna M.; Schaefer, Kevin; Fisher, Joshua B.; Fang, Yuanyuan; Wei, Yaxing

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-66103-9

Title: Modeling suggests fossil fuel emissions have been driving increased land carbon uptake since the turn of the 20th Century

Journal Article · Wed Jun 03 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Scientific Reports

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-66103-9· OSTI ID:1651280

Schwalm, Christopher R. ^[1]; Huntzinger, Deborah N. ^[2]; Michalak, Anna M. ^[3]; Schaefer, Kevin ^[4]; Fisher, Joshua B. ^[5]; Fang, Yuanyuan ^[3];

^[6]

Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, MA (United States); Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States). Center for Ecosystem Science and Society
Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States). School of Earth & Sustainability
Carnegie Inst. for Science, Stanford, CA (United States). Dept. of Global Ecology
National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, CO (United States)
California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Jet Propulsion Lab. (JPL)
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Environmental Sciences Division

Terrestrial vegetation removes CO₂ from the atmosphere; an important climate regulation service that slows global warming. This 119 Pg C per annum transfer of CO₂ into plants—gross primary productivity (GPP)—is the largest land carbon flux globally. While understanding past and anticipated future GPP changes is necessary to support carbon management, the factors driving long-term changes in GPP are largely unknown. In this study, we show that 1901 to 2010 changes in GPP have been dominated by anthropogenic activity. Our dual constraint attribution approach provides three insights into the spatiotemporal patterns of GPP change. First, anthropogenic controls on GPP change have increased from 57% (1901 decade) to 94% (2001 decade) of the vegetated land surface. Second, CO₂ fertilization and nitrogen deposition are the most important drivers of change, 19.8 and 11.1 Pg C per annum (2001 decade) respectively, especially in the tropics and industrialized areas since the 1970’s. Third, changes in climate have functioned as fertilization to enhance GPP (1.4 Pg C per annum in the 2001 decade). These findings suggest that, from a land carbon balance perspective, the Anthropocene began over 100 years ago and that global change drivers have allowed GPP uptake to keep pace with anthropogenic emissions.

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

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725; N4-TE14-0047-NNH14ZDA001N-TE; 13-CARBON13_2-0036-NNH13ZDA001N-CARBON; 14-CMAC14-NNX16AB19G; NNX10AG01A; NNH10AN681

OSTI ID:: 1651280

Journal Information:: Scientific Reports, Vol. 10, Issue 1; ISSN 2045-2322

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 12 works

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Title: Modeling suggests fossil fuel emissions have been driving increased land carbon uptake since the turn of the 20th Century

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