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Terrestrial biospheric response to atmospheric CO[sub 2] and the [open quotes]missing carbon[close quotes]

Conference · · Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America; (United States)
OSTI ID:6246008
Part of the CO[sub 2] released to the atmosphere by the global use of fossil fuels remains unaccounted for in observations of atmospheric CO[sub 2] or model estimates of carbon uptake by the world's oceans. CO[sub 2] stimulation of terrestrial net primary production (NPP) has been proposed as a mechanism to account for this [open quotes]missing carbon[close quotes]. To assess this proposition, we use a global model of carbon dynamics in terrestrial ecosystems. Plant growth is a logistic function of vegetation carbon density. We model the CO[sub 2] response of NPP as a logarithmic function of increasing atmospheric CO[sub 2] (the classic response function of global carbon cycle models) and as a more physiologically justified rectangular hyperbolic response. We derive parameters for these functions from experimental studies of plant response to suggest a recent upper limit on CO[sub 2] stimulated terrestrial carbon storage of [approx]0.5 Gt C yr[sup [minus]1] and a maximum CO[sub 2] enhance storage is sufficient to account for the [open quotes]missing[close quotes] fossil fuel carbon releases, but it is sufficient to also account for most estimates of the additional carbon released by changes in land use.
OSTI ID:
6246008
Report Number(s):
CONF-930798--
Conference Information:
Journal Name: Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America; (United States) Journal Volume: 74:2
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English