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Title: Field-experiment constraints on the enhancement of the terrestrial carbon sink by CO2 fertilization

Abstract

Clarifying how increased atmospheric CO2 concentration (eCO2) adds to accelerated land carbon sequestration remains important since this process is the largest negative feedback in the coupled carbon–climate system. In this work, we constrain the sensitivity of the terrestrial carbon sink to eCO2 over the temperate Northern Hemisphere for the past five decades, using 12 terrestrial ecosystem models and data from seven CO2 enrichment experiments. This constraint uses the heuristic finding that the northern temperate carbon sink sensitivity to eCO2 is linearly related to the site-scale sensitivity across the models. The emerging data-constrained eCO2 sensitivity is 0.64 ± 0.28 PgC yr–1 per hundred ppm of eCO2. Extrapolating worldwide, this northern temperate sensitivity projects the global terrestrial carbon sink to increase by 3.5 ±1.9 PgC yr–1 for an increase in CO2 of 100 ppm. This value indicates that CO2 fertilization alone explains most of the observed increase in global land carbon sink since the 1960s. More CO2 enrichment experiments, particularly in boreal, arctic and tropical ecosystems, are required to explain further the responsible processes.

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3]; ORCiD logo [4];  [5]; ORCiD logo [6]; ORCiD logo [7];  [5];  [8]; ORCiD logo [8];  [5]; ORCiD logo [9]; ORCiD logo [10]; ORCiD logo [11];  [5];  [12]; ORCiD logo [13];  [14]; ORCiD logo [15];  [16] more »; ORCiD logo [17]; ORCiD logo [18]; ORCiD logo [19];  [13]; ORCiD logo [20]; ORCiD logo [21];  [22];  [19]; ORCiD logo [23]; ORCiD logo [19]; ORCiD logo [24];  [25];  [1] « less
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China)
  2. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China); Peking Univ., Beijing (China)
  3. International Inst. for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg (Austria)
  4. Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA-CNRS-UVSQ), Gif-sur-Yvette (France). Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement
  5. Peking Univ., Beijing (China)
  6. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China)
  7. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
  8. Hebei Univ. (China)
  9. Univ. of Antwerp, Wilrijk (Belgium)
  10. Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF), Barcelona (Spain); Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), Barcelona (Spain)
  11. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford (United Kingdom)
  12. McMaster Univ., Hamilton, ON (Canada)
  13. Carnegie Inst. of Science, Stanford, CA (United States)
  14. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
  15. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
  16. Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States)
  17. National Inst. for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba (Japan)
  18. Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL (United States)
  19. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  20. Univ. of Quebec, Montreal, QC (Canada); Northwest A&F Univ., Shaanxi (China)
  21. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
  22. Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, MA (United States); Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States)
  23. Auburn Univ., AL (United States)
  24. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
  25. Northwest A&F Univ., Shaanxi (China)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); National Key Research and Development Program of China; Strategic Priority Research Program (A) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
OSTI Identifier:
1560427
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1580931
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC05-00OR22725; AC02-05CH11231; XDA20050101; 2017YFA0604702; 41861134036; 41701089
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Nature Geoscience
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 12; Journal Issue: 10; Journal ID: ISSN 1752-0894
Publisher:
Nature Publishing Group
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
58 GEOSCIENCES; carbon cycle; climate and Earth system modelling; climate-change ecology

Citation Formats

Liu, Yongwen, Piao, Shilong, Gasser, Thomas, Ciais, Philippe, Yang, Hui, Wang, Han, Keenan, Trevor F., Huang, Mengtian, Wan, Shiqiang, Song, Jian, Wang, Kai, Janssens, Ivan A., Peñuelas, Josep, Huntingford, Chris, Wang, Xuhui, Altaf Arain, Muhammad, Fang, Yuanyuan, Fisher, Joshua B., Huang, Maoyi, Huntzinger, Deborah N., Ito, Akihiko, Jain, Atul K., Mao, Jiafu, Michalak, Anna M., Peng, Changhui, Poulter, Benjamin, Schwalm, Christopher, Shi, Xiaoying, Tian, Hanqin, Wei, Yaxing, Zeng, Ning, Zhu, Qiuan, and Wang, Tao. Field-experiment constraints on the enhancement of the terrestrial carbon sink by CO2 fertilization. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1038/s41561-019-0436-1.
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Liu, Yongwen, Piao, Shilong, Gasser, Thomas, Ciais, Philippe, Yang, Hui, Wang, Han, Keenan, Trevor F., Huang, Mengtian, Wan, Shiqiang, Song, Jian, Wang, Kai, Janssens, Ivan A., Peñuelas, Josep, Huntingford, Chris, Wang, Xuhui, Altaf Arain, Muhammad, Fang, Yuanyuan, Fisher, Joshua B., Huang, Maoyi, Huntzinger, Deborah N., Ito, Akihiko, Jain, Atul K., Mao, Jiafu, Michalak, Anna M., Peng, Changhui, Poulter, Benjamin, Schwalm, Christopher, Shi, Xiaoying, Tian, Hanqin, Wei, Yaxing, Zeng, Ning, Zhu, Qiuan, & Wang, Tao. Field-experiment constraints on the enhancement of the terrestrial carbon sink by CO2 fertilization. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0436-1
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Liu, Yongwen, Piao, Shilong, Gasser, Thomas, Ciais, Philippe, Yang, Hui, Wang, Han, Keenan, Trevor F., Huang, Mengtian, Wan, Shiqiang, Song, Jian, Wang, Kai, Janssens, Ivan A., Peñuelas, Josep, Huntingford, Chris, Wang, Xuhui, Altaf Arain, Muhammad, Fang, Yuanyuan, Fisher, Joshua B., Huang, Maoyi, Huntzinger, Deborah N., Ito, Akihiko, Jain, Atul K., Mao, Jiafu, Michalak, Anna M., Peng, Changhui, Poulter, Benjamin, Schwalm, Christopher, Shi, Xiaoying, Tian, Hanqin, Wei, Yaxing, Zeng, Ning, Zhu, Qiuan, and Wang, Tao. Mon . "Field-experiment constraints on the enhancement of the terrestrial carbon sink by CO2 fertilization". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0436-1. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1560427.
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@article{osti_1560427,
title = {Field-experiment constraints on the enhancement of the terrestrial carbon sink by CO2 fertilization},
author = {Liu, Yongwen and Piao, Shilong and Gasser, Thomas and Ciais, Philippe and Yang, Hui and Wang, Han and Keenan, Trevor F. and Huang, Mengtian and Wan, Shiqiang and Song, Jian and Wang, Kai and Janssens, Ivan A. and Peñuelas, Josep and Huntingford, Chris and Wang, Xuhui and Altaf Arain, Muhammad and Fang, Yuanyuan and Fisher, Joshua B. and Huang, Maoyi and Huntzinger, Deborah N. and Ito, Akihiko and Jain, Atul K. and Mao, Jiafu and Michalak, Anna M. and Peng, Changhui and Poulter, Benjamin and Schwalm, Christopher and Shi, Xiaoying and Tian, Hanqin and Wei, Yaxing and Zeng, Ning and Zhu, Qiuan and Wang, Tao},
abstractNote = {Clarifying how increased atmospheric CO2 concentration (eCO2) adds to accelerated land carbon sequestration remains important since this process is the largest negative feedback in the coupled carbon–climate system. In this work, we constrain the sensitivity of the terrestrial carbon sink to eCO2 over the temperate Northern Hemisphere for the past five decades, using 12 terrestrial ecosystem models and data from seven CO2 enrichment experiments. This constraint uses the heuristic finding that the northern temperate carbon sink sensitivity to eCO2 is linearly related to the site-scale sensitivity across the models. The emerging data-constrained eCO2 sensitivity is 0.64 ± 0.28 PgC yr–1 per hundred ppm of eCO2. Extrapolating worldwide, this northern temperate sensitivity projects the global terrestrial carbon sink to increase by 3.5 ±1.9 PgC yr–1 for an increase in CO2 of 100 ppm. This value indicates that CO2 fertilization alone explains most of the observed increase in global land carbon sink since the 1960s. More CO2 enrichment experiments, particularly in boreal, arctic and tropical ecosystems, are required to explain further the responsible processes.},
doi = {10.1038/s41561-019-0436-1},
journal = {Nature Geoscience},
number = 10,
volume = 12,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Sep 02 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Mon Sep 02 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0436-1
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    Works referencing / citing this record:

    Global vegetation biomass production efficiency constrained by models and observations
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