Absolute Contribution of the Non-Uniform Spatial Distribution of Atmospheric CO2 to Net Primary Production through CO2-Radiative Forcing

Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are the most important driver of the Earth’s climate and ecosystems through CO2-radiative forcing, fueling the surface temperature and latent heat flux on half-century timescales. We used FGOALS-s2 coupled with AVIM2 to estimate the response of net primary productio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability
Main Authors: Jing Peng, Li Dan, Jinming Feng, Kairan Ying, Xiba Tang, Fuqiang Yang
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2021
Subjects:
non-uniform CO 2
CO 2 -radiative forcing
net primary production
surface temperature
soil moisture
sea surface temperature
geo
envir
Sea ice
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3390/su131910897
https://doaj.org/article/08500854e86547bf937a98988321ea20
Description
Summary:Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are the most important driver of the Earth’s climate and ecosystems through CO2-radiative forcing, fueling the surface temperature and latent heat flux on half-century timescales. We used FGOALS-s2 coupled with AVIM2 to estimate the response of net primary production (NPP) to spatial variations in CO2 during the time period 1956–2005. We investigated how the induced variations in surface temperature and soil moisture influence NPP and the feedback of the oceans and sea ice on changes in NPP. The spatial variations in the concentrations of CO2 resulted in a decrease in NPP from 1956 to 2005 when we included ocean and sea ice dynamics, but a slight increase in NPP without ocean and sea ice dynamics. One of the reasons is that the positive feedback of sea temperature to the surface temperature leads to a significant decrease in tropical NPP. Globally, the non-uniform spatial distribution of CO2 absolutely contributed about 14.3% ± 2.2% to the terrestrial NPP when we included ocean and sea ice dynamics or about 11.5% ± 1.1% without ocean and sea ice dynamics. Our findings suggest that more attention should be paid to the response of NPP to spatial variations in atmospheric CO2 through CO2-radiative forcing, particularly at low latitudes, to better constrain the predicted carbon flux under current and future conditions. We also highlight the fundamental importance of changes in soil moisture in determining the pattern, response and magnitude of NPP to the non-uniform spatial distribution of CO2 under a warming climate.

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