Identification

Title

Influence of carbon-nitrogen cycle coupling on land model response to CO₂ fertilization and climate variability

Abstract

Nutrient cycling affects carbon uptake by the terrestrial biosphere and imposes controls on carbon cycle response to variation in temperature and precipitation, but nutrient cycling is ignored in most global coupled models of the carbon cycle and climate system. We demonstrate here that the inclusion of nutrient cycle dynamics, specifically the close coupling between carbon and nitrogen cycles, in a terrestrial biogeochemistry component of a global coupled climate system model leads to fundamentally altered behavior for several of the most critical feedback mechanisms operating between the land biosphere and the global climate system. Carbon-nitrogen cycle coupling reduces the simulated global terrestrial carbon uptake response to increasing atmospheric CO₂ concentration by 74%, relative to a carbon-only counterpart model. Global integrated responses of net land carbon exchange to variation in temperature and precipitation are significantly damped by carbon-nitrogen cycle coupling. The carbon cycle responses to temperature and precipitation variation are reduced in magnitude as atmospheric CO₂ concentration rises for the coupled carbon-nitrogen model, but increase in magnitude for the carbon-only counterpart. Our results suggest that previous carbon-only treatments of climate-carbon cycle coupling likely overestimate the terrestrial biosphere's capacity to ameliorate atmospheric CO₂ increases through direct fertilization. The next generation of coupled climate-biogeochemistry model projections for future atmospheric CO₂ concentration and climate change should include explicit, prognostic treatment of terrestrial carbon-nitrogen cycle coupling.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7nc61fb

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2007-12-14T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact