Informing climate models with rapid chamber measurements of forest carbon uptake.
Models predicting ecosystem carbon dioxide (CO2 ) exchange under future climate change rely on relatively few real-world tests of their assumptions and outputs. Here, we demonstrate a rapid and cost-effective method to estimate CO2 exchange from intact vegetation patches under varying atmospheric CO2 concentrations. We find that net ecosystem CO2 uptake (NEE) in a boreal forest rose linearly by 4.7 ± 0.2% of the current ambient rate for every 10 ppm CO2 increase, with no detectable influence of foliar biomass, season, or nitrogen (N) fertilization. The lack of any clear short-term NEE response to fertilization in such an N-limited system is inconsistent with the instantaneous downregulation of photosynthesis formalized in many global models. Incorporating an alternative mechanism with considerable empirical support - diversion of excess carbon to storage compounds - into an existing earth system model brings the model output into closer agreement with our field measurements. A global simulation incorporating this modified model reduces a long-standing mismatch between the modeled and observed seasonal amplitude of atmospheric CO2 . Wider application of this chamber approach would provide critical data needed to further improve modeled projections of biosphere-atmosphere CO2 exchange in a changing climate.
Duke Scholars
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- Forests
- Ecosystem
- Ecology
- Climate Change
- Climate
- Carbon Dioxide
- Carbon Cycle
- Carbon
- Atmosphere
- 41 Environmental sciences
Citation
Published In
DOI
EISSN
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- Forests
- Ecosystem
- Ecology
- Climate Change
- Climate
- Carbon Dioxide
- Carbon Cycle
- Carbon
- Atmosphere
- 41 Environmental sciences