Regional contribution to variability and trends of global gross primary productivity

[en] Terrestrial gross primary productivity (GPP) is the largest component of the global carbon cycle and a key process for understanding land ecosystems dynamics. In this study, we used GPP estimates from a combination of eight global biome models participating in the Inter-Sectoral Impact-Model Intercomparison Project phase 2a (ISIMIP2a), the Moderate Resolution Spectroradiometer (MODIS) GPP product, and a data-driven product (Model Tree Ensemble, MTE) to study the spatiotemporal variability of GPP at the regional and global levels. We found the 2000–2010 total global GPP estimated from the model ensemble to be 117 ± 13 Pg C yr −1 (mean ± 1 standard deviation), which was higher than MODIS (112 Pg C yr −1 ), and close to the MTE (120 Pg C yr −1 ). The spatial patterns of MODIS, MTE and ISIMIP2a GPP generally agree well, but their temporal trends are different, and the seasonality and inter-annual variability of GPP at the regional and global levels are not completely consistent. For the model ensemble, Tropical Latin America contributes the most to global GPP, Asian regions contribute the most to the global GPP trend, the Northern Hemisphere regions dominate the global GPP seasonal variations, and Oceania is likely the largest contributor to inter-annual variability of global GPP. However, we observed large uncertainties across the eight ISIMIP2a models, which are probably due to the differences in the formulation of underlying photosynthetic processes. The results of this study are useful in understanding the contributions of different regions to global GPP and its spatiotemporal variability, how the model- and observational-based GPP estimates differ from each other in time and space, and the relative strength of the eight models. Our results also highlight the models’ ability to capture the seasonality of GPP that are essential for understanding the inter-annual and seasonal variability of GPP as a major component of the carbon cycle.

Disciplines :

Earth sciences & physical geography

Author, co-author :

Chen, Min

Rafique, Rashid

Asrar, Ghassem R.

Bond-Lamberty, Ben

Ciais, Philippe

Zhao, Fang

Reyer, Christopher P. O.

Ostberg, Sebastian

Chang, Jinfeng

Ito, Akihiko

More authors (17 more)

Language :

English

Title :

Regional contribution to variability and trends of global gross primary productivity

Publication date :

2017

Journal title :

Environmental Research Letters

eISSN :

1748-9326

Publisher :

Institute of Physics Publishing, Bristol, United Kingdom

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

105005

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

http://stacks.iop.org/1748-9326/12/i=10/a=105005

Available on ORBi :

since 01 July 2018

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