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Title: Impact of mesophyll diffusion on estimated global land CO2 fertilization

Journal Article · · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
 [1];  [2];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [4]
  1. Univ. of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX (United States)
  2. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  3. Univ. of Missouri, Columbia, MO (United States). Dept. of Forestry
  4. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Climate Change Science Institute and Computational Earth Sciences Group

In C3 plants, CO2 concentrations drop considerably along mesophyll diffusion pathways from substomatal cavities to chloroplasts where CO2 assimilation occurs. Global carbon cycle models have not explicitly represented this internal drawdown and so overestimate CO2 available for carboxylation and underestimate photosynthetic responsiveness to atmospheric CO2. An explicit consideration of mesophyll diffusion increases the modeled cumulative CO2 fertilization effect (CFE) for global gross primary production (GPP) from 915 PgC to 1057 PgC for the period of 1901 to 2010. This increase represents a 16% correction, large enough to explain the persistent overestimation of growth rates of historical atmospheric CO2 by Earth System Models. Without this correction, the CFE for global GPP is underestimated by 0.05 PgC yr-1ppm-1. This finding implies that the contemporary terrestrial biosphere is more CO2-limited than previously thought.

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:
FG02- 01ER64746; AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1160002
Journal Information:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 111, Issue 44; ISSN 0027-8424
Publisher:
National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC (United States)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 91 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (32)

Revisiting ocean carbon sequestration by direct injection: a global carbon budget perspective journal January 2016
The response of stomatal conductance to seasonal drought in tropical forests journal October 2019
The interaction between nitrogen and phosphorous is a strong predictor of intra-plant variation in nitrogen isotope composition in a desert species journal January 2017
Understanding regulation of leaf internal carbon and water transport using online stable isotope techniques journal September 2016
Revisiting ocean carbon sequestration by direct injection: A global carbon budget perspective journal April 2016
Mesophyll conductance and accurate photosynthetic carbon gain calculations journal November 2018
Elevated [ CO 2 ] effects on crops: Advances in understanding acclimation, nitrogen dynamics and interactions with drought and other organisms journal January 2019
Reliable, robust and realistic: the three R's of next-generation land-surface modelling journal January 2015
Ecosystem functioning is enveloped by hydrometeorological variability journal August 2017
Carbon storage dynamics of temperate freshwater wetlands in Pennsylvania journal July 2018
Sun‐induced Chl fluorescence and its importance for biophysical modeling of photosynthesis based on light reactions journal April 2019
An Excel tool for deriving key photosynthetic parameters from combined gas exchange and chlorophyll fluorescence: theory and practice: Descriptive modelling of gas exchange data journal June 2015
High mesophyll conductance in the high-yielding rice cultivar Takanari quantified with the combined gas exchange and chlorophyll fluorescence measurements under free-air CO 2 enrichment journal July 2019
What gas exchange data can tell us about photosynthesis: Gas exchange data and photosynthesis journal December 2015
Elevated CO 2 does not stimulate carbon sink in a semi-arid grassland journal January 2019
The many meanings of gross photosynthesis and their implication for photosynthesis research from leaf to globe: Definition of gross photosynthesis journal June 2015
The temperature response of mesophyll conductance, and its component conductances, varies between species and genotypes journal February 2019
The interaction between nitrogen and phosphorous is a strong predictor of intra-plant variation in nitrogen isotope composition in a desert species preprint November 2015
Towards a universal model for carbon dioxide uptake by plants journal September 2017
Evaluation of Forest Conversion Effects on Soil Erosion, Soil Organic Carbon and Total Nitrogen Based on 137Cs Tracer Technique journal May 2019
Historical carbon dioxide emissions caused by land-use changes are possibly larger than assumed journal January 2017
Mesophyll conductance in land surface models: effects on photosynthesis and transpiration journal December 2019
Spatiotemporal pattern of gross primary productivity and its covariation with climate in China over the last thirty years journal September 2017
Description and validation of an intermediate complexity model for ecosystem photosynthesis and evapotranspiration: ACM-GPP-ETv1 journal January 2019
Critical review: incorporating the arrangement of mitochondria and chloroplasts into models of photosynthesis and carbon isotope discrimination journal April 2019
High mesophyll conductance in the high-yielding rice cultivar Takanari quantified with the combined gas exchange and chlorophyll fluorescence measurements under free-air CO2 enrichment text January 2019
A meta-analysis of crop response patterns to nitrogen limitation for improved model representation journal October 2019
A vertically discretised canopy description for ORCHIDEE (SVN r2290) and the modifications to the energy, water and carbon fluxes journal January 2015
Atmospheric evidence for a global secular increase in carbon isotopic discrimination of land photosynthesis journal September 2017
Is NPP proportional to GPP? Waring’s hypothesis 20 years on journal May 2019
The interaction between nitrogen and phosphorous is a strong predictor of 2 intra-plant variation in nitrogen isotope composition in a desert species posted_content June 2016
Using photorespiratory oxygen response to analyse leaf mesophyll resistance journal February 2020

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