A process-model perspective on recent changes in the carbon cycle of North America

Continental North America has been found to be a carbon (C) sink over recent decades by multiple studies employing a variety of estimation approaches. However, several key questions and uncertainties remain with these assessments. Here we used results from an ensemble of 19 state-of-the-art dynamic global vegetation models from the TRENDYv9 project to improve these estimates and study the drivers of its interannual variability. Our results show that North America has been a C sink with a magnitude of 0.37 +/- 0.38 (mean and one standard deviation) PgC year(-1) for the period 2000-2019 (0.31 and 0.44 PgC year(-1) in each decade); split into 0.18 +/- 0.12 PgC year(-1) in Canada (0.15 and 0.20), 0.16 +/- 0.17 in the United States (0.14 and 0.17), 0.02 +/- 0.05 PgC year(-1) in Mexico (0.02 and 0.02) and 0.01 +/- 0.02 in Central America and the Caribbean (0.01 and 0.01). About 57% of the new C assimilated by terrestrial ecosystems is allocated into vegetation, 30% into soils, and 13% into litter. Losses of C due to fire account for 41% of the interannual variability of the mean net biome productivity for all North America in the model ensemble. Finally, we show that drought years (e.g., 2002) have the potential to shift the region to a small net C source in the simulations (-0.02 +/- 0.46 PgC year(-1)). Our results highlight the importance of identifying the major drivers of the interannual variability of the continental-scale land C cycle along with the spatial distribution of local sink-source dynamics.

To Access Resource:

Questions? Email Resource Support Contact:

  • opensky@ucar.edu
    UCAR/NCAR - Library

Resource Type publication
Temporal Range Begin N/A
Temporal Range End N/A
Temporal Resolution N/A
Bounding Box North Lat N/A
Bounding Box South Lat N/A
Bounding Box West Long N/A
Bounding Box East Long N/A
Spatial Representation N/A
Spatial Resolution N/A
Related Links

Related JournalArticle #1 : A process-model perspective on recent changes in the carbon cycle of North America
Additional Information N/A
Resource Format PDF
Standardized Resource Format PDF
Asset Size N/A
Legal Constraints

Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Access Constraints None
Software Implementation Language N/A

Resource Support Name N/A
Resource Support Email opensky@ucar.edu
Resource Support Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library
Distributor N/A
Metadata Contact Name N/A
Metadata Contact Email opensky@ucar.edu
Metadata Contact Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library

Author Murray-Tortarolo, G.
Poulter, B.
Vargas, R.
Hayes, D.
Michalak, A. M.
Williams, C.
Windham-Myers, L.
Wang, J. A.
Wickland, K. P.
Butman, D.
Tian, H.
Sitch, S.
Friedlingstein, P.
O'Sullivan, M.
Briggs, P.
Arora, V.
Lombardozzi, Danica
Jain, A. K.
Yuan, W.
Séférian, R.
Nabel, J.
Wiltshire, A.
Arneth, A.
Lienert, S.
Zaehle, S.
Bastrikov, V.
Goll, D.
Vuichard, N.
Walker, A.
Kato, E.
Yue, X.
Zhang, Z.
Chaterjee, A.
Kurz, W.
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2022-09-01T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
Alternate Identifier N/A
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
Progress N/A
Metadata Date 2025-07-11T16:00:01.262325
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:25722
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Murray-Tortarolo, G., Poulter, B., Vargas, R., Hayes, D., Michalak, A. M., Williams, C., Windham-Myers, L., Wang, J. A., Wickland, K. P., Butman, D., Tian, H., Sitch, S., Friedlingstein, P., O'Sullivan, M., Briggs, P., Arora, V., Lombardozzi, Danica, Jain, A. K., Yuan, W., Séférian, R., Nabel, J., Wiltshire, A., Arneth, A., Lienert, S., Zaehle, S., Bastrikov, V., Goll, D., Vuichard, N., Walker, A., Kato, E., Yue, X., Zhang, Z., Chaterjee, A., Kurz, W.. (2022). A process-model perspective on recent changes in the carbon cycle of North America. UCAR/NCAR - Library. https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7qj7n2k. Accessed 01 August 2025.

Harvest Source