Contrasting Regional Carbon Cycle Responses to Seasonal Climate Anomalies Across the East‐West Divide of Temperate North America

Across temperate North America, interannual variability (IAV) in gross primary production (GPP) and net ecosystem exchange (NEE) and their relationship with environmental drivers are poorly understood. Here, we examine IAV in GPP and NEE and their relationship to environmental drivers using two state‐of‐the‐science flux products: NEE constrained by surface and space‐based atmospheric CO2 measurements over 2010–2015 and satellite up‐scaled GPP from FluxSat over 2001–2017. We show that the arid western half of temperate North America provides a larger contribution to IAV in GPP (104% of east) and NEE (127% of east) than the eastern half, in spite of smaller magnitude of annual mean GPP and NEE. This occurs because anomalies in western ecosystems are temporally coherent across the growing season leading to an amplification of GPP and NEE. In contrast, IAV in GPP and NEE in eastern ecosystems is dominated by seasonal compensation effects, associated with opposite responses to temperature anomalies in spring and summer. Terrestrial biosphere models in the MsTMIP ensemble generally capture these differences between eastern and western temperate North America, although there is considerable spread between models

Moist synoptic transport of CO2 along the mid-latitude storm track

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 38 (2011): L09804, doi:10.1029/2011GL047238.Atmospheric mixing ratios of CO2 are strongly seasonal in the Arctic due to mid-latitude transport. Here we analyze the seasonal influence of moist synoptic storms by diagnosing CO2 transport from a global model on moist isentropes (to represent parcel trajectories through stormtracks) and parsing transport into eddy and mean components. During winter when northern plants respire, warm moist air, high in CO2, is swept poleward into the polar vortex, while cold dry air, low in CO2, that had been transported into the polar vortex earlier in the year is swept equatorward. Eddies reduce seasonality in mid-latitudes by ∼50% of NEE (∼100% of fossil fuel) while amplifying seasonality at high latitudes. Transport along stormtracks is correlated with rising, moist, cloudy air, which systematically hides this CO2 transport from satellites. We recommend that (1) regional inversions carefully account for meridional transport and (2) inversion models represent moist and frontal processes with high fidelity.This research is supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration contracts NNX08AT77G, NNX06AC75G, and NNX08AM56G

Spatiotemporal patterns of terrestrial gross primary production: A review

This is the final version of the article. Available from American Geophysical Union via the DOI in this record.There is another record for this publication in ORE at http://hdl.handle.net/10871/21007Great advances have been made in the last decade in quantifying and understanding the spatiotemporal patterns of terrestrial gross primary production (GPP) with ground, atmospheric, and space observations. However, although global GPP estimates exist, each data set relies upon assumptions and none of the available data are based only on measurements. Consequently, there is no consensus on the global total GPP and large uncertainties exist in its benchmarking. The objective of this review is to assess how the different available data sets predict the spatiotemporal patterns of GPP, identify the differences among data sets, and highlight the main advantages/disadvantages of each data set. We compare GPP estimates for the historical period (1990-2009) from two observation-based data sets (Model Tree Ensemble and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) to coupled carbon-climate models and terrestrial carbon cycle models from the Fifth Climate Model Intercomparison Project and TRENDY projects and to a new hybrid data set (CARBONES). Results show a large range in the mean global GPP estimates. The different data sets broadly agree on GPP seasonal cycle in terms of phasing, while there is still discrepancy on the amplitude. For interannual variability (IAV) and trends, there is a clear separation between the observation-based data that show little IAV and trend, while the process-based models have large GPP variability and significant trends. These results suggest that there is an urgent need to improve observation-based data sets and develop carbon cycle modeling with processes that are currently treated either very simplistically to correctly estimate present GPP and better quantify the future uptake of carbon dioxide by the world's vegetation.European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme. Grant Numbers: 238366, 28267

Spatiotemporal patterns of terrestrial gross primary production: A review

This is the final version of the article. Available from American Geophysical Union via the DOI in this record.There is another record for this publication in ORE at http://hdl.handle.net/10871/30934Great advances have been made in the last decade in quantifying and understanding the spatiotemporal patterns of terrestrial gross primary production (GPP) with ground, atmospheric, and space observations. However, although global GPP estimates exist, each data set relies upon assumptions and none of the available data are based only on measurements. Consequently, there is no consensus on the global total GPP and large uncertainties exist in its benchmarking. The objective of this review is to assess how the different available data sets predict the spatiotemporal patterns of GPP, identify the differences among data sets, and highlight the main advantages/disadvantages of each data set. We compare GPP estimates for the historical period (1990-2009) from two observation-based data sets (Model Tree Ensemble and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) to coupled carbon-climate models and terrestrial carbon cycle models from the Fifth Climate Model Intercomparison Project and TRENDY projects and to a new hybrid data set (CARBONES). Results show a large range in the mean global GPP estimates. The different data sets broadly agree on GPP seasonal cycle in terms of phasing, while there is still discrepancy on the amplitude. For interannual variability (IAV) and trends, there is a clear separation between the observation-based data that show little IAV and trend, while the process-based models have large GPP variability and significant trends. These results suggest that there is an urgent need to improve observation-based data sets and develop carbon cycle modeling with processes that are currently treated either very simplistically to correctly estimate present GPP and better quantify the future uptake of carbon dioxide by the world's vegetation.European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme. Grant Numbers: 238366, 28267

Simulating estimation of California fossil fuel and biosphere carbon dioxide exchanges combining in situ tower and satellite column observations

We report simulation experiments estimating the uncertainties in California regional fossil fuel and biosphere CO2 exchanges that might be obtained by using an atmospheric inverse modeling system driven by the combination of ground‐based observations of radiocarbon and total CO2, together with column‐mean CO2 observations from NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO‐2). The work includes an initial examination of statistical uncertainties in prior models for CO2 exchange, in radiocarbon‐based fossil fuel CO2 measurements, in OCO‐2 measurements, and in a regional atmospheric transport modeling system. Using these nominal assumptions for measurement and model uncertainties, we find that flask measurements of radiocarbon and total CO2 at 10 towers can be used to distinguish between different fossil fuel emission data products for major urban regions of California. We then show that the combination of flask and OCO‐2 observations yields posterior uncertainties in monthly‐mean fossil fuel emissions of ~5–10%, levels likely useful for policy relevant evaluation of bottom‐up fossil fuel emission estimates. Similarly, we find that inversions yield uncertainties in monthly biosphere CO2 exchange of ~6%–12%, depending on season, providing useful information on net carbon uptake in California's forests and agricultural lands. Finally, initial sensitivity analysis suggests that obtaining the above results requires control of systematic biases below approximately 0.5 ppm, placing requirements on accuracy of the atmospheric measurements, background subtraction, and atmospheric transport modeling

Improved Constraints on Northern Extratropical CO₂ Fluxes Obtained by Combining Surface-Based and Space-Based Atmospheric CO₂ Measurements

Top‐down estimates of CO₂ fluxes are typically constrained by either surface‐based or space‐based CO₂ observations. Both of these measurement types have spatial and temporal gaps in observational coverage that can lead to differences in inferred fluxes. Assimilating both surface‐based and space‐based measurements concurrently in a flux inversion framework improves observational coverage and reduces sampling related artifacts. This study examines the consistency of flux constraints provided by these different observations and the potential to combine them by performing a series of 6‐year (2010–2015) CO₂ flux inversions. Flux inversions are performed assimilating surface‐based measurements from the in situ and flask network, measurements from the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON), and space‐based measurements from the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT), or all three data sets combined. Combining the data sets results in more precise flux estimates for subcontinental regions relative to any of the data sets alone. Combining the data sets also improves the accuracy of the posterior fluxes, based on reduced root‐mean‐square differences between posterior flux‐simulated CO₂ and aircraft‐based CO₂ over midlatitude regions (0.33–0.56 ppm) in comparison to GOSAT (0.37–0.61 ppm), TCCON (0.50–0.68 ppm), or in situ and flask measurements (0.46–0.56 ppm) alone. These results suggest that surface‐based and GOSAT measurements give complementary constraints on CO₂ fluxes in the northern extratropics and can be combined in flux inversions to improve constraints on regional fluxes. This stands in contrast with many earlier attempts to combine these data sets and suggests that improvements in the NASA Atmospheric CO₂ Observations from Space (ACOS) retrieval algorithm have significantly improved the consistency of space‐based and surface‐based flux constraints

Improved process representation of leaf phenology significantly shifts climate sensitivity of ecosystem carbon balance

Terrestrial carbon cycle models are routinely used to determine the response of the land carbon sink under expected future climate change, yet these predictions remain highly uncertain. Increasing the realism of processes in these models may help with predictive skill, but any such addition should be confronted with observations and evaluated in the context of the aggregate behavior of the carbon cycle. Here, two formulations for leaf area index (LAI) phenology are coupled to the same terrestrial biosphere model: one is climate agnostic, and the other incorporates direct environmental controls on both timing and growth. Each model is calibrated simultaneously to observations of LAI, net ecosystem exchange (NEE), and biomass using the CARbon DAta-MOdel fraMework (CARDAMOM) and validated against withheld data, including eddy covariance estimates of gross primary productivity (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (Re) across six ecosystems from the tropics to high latitudes. Both model formulations show similar predictive skill for LAI and NEE. However, with the addition of direct environmental controls on LAI, the integrated model explains 22 % more variability in GPP and Re and reduces biases in these fluxes by 58 % and 77 %, respectively, while also predicting more realistic annual litterfall rates due to changes in carbon allocation and turnover. We extend this analysis to evaluate the inferred climate sensitivity of LAI and NEE with the new model and show that the added complexity shifts the sign, magnitude, and seasonality of NEE sensitivity to precipitation and temperature. This highlights the benefit of process complexity when inferring underlying processes from Earth observations and representing the climate response of the terrestrial carbon cycle.</p