A constraint on historic growth in global photosynthesis due to increasing CO2

T. F. Keenan; X. Luo; M. G. De Kauwe; B. E. Medlyn; I. C. Prentice; B. D. Stocker; N. G. Smith; C. Terrer; H. Wang; Y. Zhang; S. Zhou

doi:10.1038/s41586-021-04096-9

A constraint on historic growth in global photosynthesis due to increasing CO2

T. F. Keenan^*, X. Luo, M. G. De Kauwe, B. E. Medlyn, I. C. Prentice, B. D. Stocker, N. G. Smith, C. Terrer, H. Wang, Y. Zhang, S. Zhou

^*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

The global terrestrial carbon sink is increasing1,2,3, offsetting roughly a third of anthropogenic CO2 released into the atmosphere each decade1, and thus serving to slow4 the growth of atmospheric CO2. It has been suggested that a CO2-induced long-term increase in global photosynthesis, a process known as CO2 fertilization, is responsible for a large proportion of the current terrestrial carbon sink4,5,6,7. The estimated magnitude of the historic increase in photosynthesis as result of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, however, differs by an order of magnitude between long-term proxies and terrestrial biosphere models7,8,9,10,11,12,13. Here we quantify the historic effect of CO2 on global photosynthesis by identifying an emergent constraint14,15,16 that combines terrestrial biosphere models with global carbon budget estimates. Our analysis suggests that CO2 fertilization increased global annual photosynthesis by 11.85 ± 1.4%, or 13.98 ± 1.63 petagrams carbon (mean ± 95% confidence interval) between 1981 and 2020. Our results help resolve conflicting estimates of the historic sensitivity of global photosynthesis to CO2, and highlight the large impact anthropogenic emissions have had on ecosystems worldwide.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	253-258
Number of pages	6
Journal	Nature
Volume	600
Issue number	7888
Early online date	8 Dec 2021
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04096-9
Publication status	Published - 9 Dec 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Acknowledgements T.F.K., X.L. and Y.Z. acknowledge primary support from the NASA IDS Award NNH17AE86I. T.F.K. acknowledges additional support from NASA award 80NSSC21K1705 and by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research of the US Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract DE-AC02-05CH11231 as part of the RUBISCO SFA and a DOE ECRP Award DE-SC0021023. M.G.D.K. acknowledges support from the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CE170100023), the ARC Discovery Grant (DP190101823) and the NSW Research Attraction and Acceleration Program. I.C.P. acknowledges the Imperial College initiative on Grand Challenges in Ecosystems and the Environment and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant agreement no. 787203 REALM). N.G.S. acknowledges support from NSF DEB-2045968 and Texas Tech University. B.D.S. was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation grant no. PCEFP2_181115. C.T. was supported by a Lawrence Fellow award through Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the DOE LLNL contract DE-AC52-07NA27344, and the LLNL-LDRD Program project 20-ERD-055. We thank R. Myneni and Z. Zhu for the provision of the fAPAR dataset, the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry Department of Biogeochemical Integration for the provision of the upscaled GPP data. We thank the TRENDY team for the provision of the DGVM simulations, and the researchers of the Global Carbon Project for making their data publicly available. We thank A. Walker for useful discussions on interpreting the deuterium isotopomer results, and acknowledge the stimulating discussions during the Integrating CO2 Fertilization Evidence Streams and Theory (ICOFEST) meeting September 2018, part of the FACE model Data-Synthesis project funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research.

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@article{3d8728266b294e46b03051f94053cebe,

title = "A constraint on historic growth in global photosynthesis due to increasing CO2",

abstract = "The global terrestrial carbon sink is increasing1,2,3, offsetting roughly a third of anthropogenic CO2 released into the atmosphere each decade1, and thus serving to slow4 the growth of atmospheric CO2. It has been suggested that a CO2-induced long-term increase in global photosynthesis, a process known as CO2 fertilization, is responsible for a large proportion of the current terrestrial carbon sink4,5,6,7. The estimated magnitude of the historic increase in photosynthesis as result of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, however, differs by an order of magnitude between long-term proxies and terrestrial biosphere models7,8,9,10,11,12,13. Here we quantify the historic effect of CO2 on global photosynthesis by identifying an emergent constraint14,15,16 that combines terrestrial biosphere models with global carbon budget estimates. Our analysis suggests that CO2 fertilization increased global annual photosynthesis by 11.85 ± 1.4\%, or 13.98 ± 1.63 petagrams carbon (mean ± 95\% confidence interval) between 1981 and 2020. Our results help resolve conflicting estimates of the historic sensitivity of global photosynthesis to CO2, and highlight the large impact anthropogenic emissions have had on ecosystems worldwide.",

author = "Keenan, \{T. F.\} and X. Luo and Kauwe, \{M. G. De\} and Medlyn, \{B. E.\} and Prentice, \{I. C.\} and Stocker, \{B. D.\} and Smith, \{N. G.\} and C. Terrer and H. Wang and Y. Zhang and S. Zhou",

note = "Funding Information: Acknowledgements T.F.K., X.L. and Y.Z. acknowledge primary support from the NASA IDS Award NNH17AE86I. T.F.K. acknowledges additional support from NASA award 80NSSC21K1705 and by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research of the US Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract DE-AC02-05CH11231 as part of the RUBISCO SFA and a DOE ECRP Award DE-SC0021023. M.G.D.K. acknowledges support from the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CE170100023), the ARC Discovery Grant (DP190101823) and the NSW Research Attraction and Acceleration Program. I.C.P. acknowledges the Imperial College initiative on Grand Challenges in Ecosystems and the Environment and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant agreement no. 787203 REALM). N.G.S. acknowledges support from NSF DEB-2045968 and Texas Tech University. B.D.S. was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation grant no. PCEFP2\_181115. C.T. was supported by a Lawrence Fellow award through Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the DOE LLNL contract DE-AC52-07NA27344, and the LLNL-LDRD Program project 20-ERD-055. We thank R. Myneni and Z. Zhu for the provision of the fAPAR dataset, the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry Department of Biogeochemical Integration for the provision of the upscaled GPP data. We thank the TRENDY team for the provision of the DGVM simulations, and the researchers of the Global Carbon Project for making their data publicly available. We thank A. Walker for useful discussions on interpreting the deuterium isotopomer results, and acknowledge the stimulating discussions during the Integrating CO2 Fertilization Evidence Streams and Theory (ICOFEST) meeting September 2018, part of the FACE model Data-Synthesis project funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.",

year = "2021",

month = dec,

day = "9",

doi = "10.1038/s41586-021-04096-9",

language = "English",

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pages = "253--258",

journal = "Nature",

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T1 - A constraint on historic growth in global photosynthesis due to increasing CO2

AU - Keenan, T. F.

AU - Luo, X.

AU - Kauwe, M. G. De

AU - Medlyn, B. E.

AU - Prentice, I. C.

AU - Stocker, B. D.

AU - Smith, N. G.

AU - Terrer, C.

AU - Wang, H.

AU - Zhang, Y.

AU - Zhou, S.

N1 - Funding Information: Acknowledgements T.F.K., X.L. and Y.Z. acknowledge primary support from the NASA IDS Award NNH17AE86I. T.F.K. acknowledges additional support from NASA award 80NSSC21K1705 and by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research of the US Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract DE-AC02-05CH11231 as part of the RUBISCO SFA and a DOE ECRP Award DE-SC0021023. M.G.D.K. acknowledges support from the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CE170100023), the ARC Discovery Grant (DP190101823) and the NSW Research Attraction and Acceleration Program. I.C.P. acknowledges the Imperial College initiative on Grand Challenges in Ecosystems and the Environment and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant agreement no. 787203 REALM). N.G.S. acknowledges support from NSF DEB-2045968 and Texas Tech University. B.D.S. was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation grant no. PCEFP2_181115. C.T. was supported by a Lawrence Fellow award through Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the DOE LLNL contract DE-AC52-07NA27344, and the LLNL-LDRD Program project 20-ERD-055. We thank R. Myneni and Z. Zhu for the provision of the fAPAR dataset, the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry Department of Biogeochemical Integration for the provision of the upscaled GPP data. We thank the TRENDY team for the provision of the DGVM simulations, and the researchers of the Global Carbon Project for making their data publicly available. We thank A. Walker for useful discussions on interpreting the deuterium isotopomer results, and acknowledge the stimulating discussions during the Integrating CO2 Fertilization Evidence Streams and Theory (ICOFEST) meeting September 2018, part of the FACE model Data-Synthesis project funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research. Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.

PY - 2021/12/9

Y1 - 2021/12/9

N2 - The global terrestrial carbon sink is increasing1,2,3, offsetting roughly a third of anthropogenic CO2 released into the atmosphere each decade1, and thus serving to slow4 the growth of atmospheric CO2. It has been suggested that a CO2-induced long-term increase in global photosynthesis, a process known as CO2 fertilization, is responsible for a large proportion of the current terrestrial carbon sink4,5,6,7. The estimated magnitude of the historic increase in photosynthesis as result of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, however, differs by an order of magnitude between long-term proxies and terrestrial biosphere models7,8,9,10,11,12,13. Here we quantify the historic effect of CO2 on global photosynthesis by identifying an emergent constraint14,15,16 that combines terrestrial biosphere models with global carbon budget estimates. Our analysis suggests that CO2 fertilization increased global annual photosynthesis by 11.85 ± 1.4%, or 13.98 ± 1.63 petagrams carbon (mean ± 95% confidence interval) between 1981 and 2020. Our results help resolve conflicting estimates of the historic sensitivity of global photosynthesis to CO2, and highlight the large impact anthropogenic emissions have had on ecosystems worldwide.

AB - The global terrestrial carbon sink is increasing1,2,3, offsetting roughly a third of anthropogenic CO2 released into the atmosphere each decade1, and thus serving to slow4 the growth of atmospheric CO2. It has been suggested that a CO2-induced long-term increase in global photosynthesis, a process known as CO2 fertilization, is responsible for a large proportion of the current terrestrial carbon sink4,5,6,7. The estimated magnitude of the historic increase in photosynthesis as result of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, however, differs by an order of magnitude between long-term proxies and terrestrial biosphere models7,8,9,10,11,12,13. Here we quantify the historic effect of CO2 on global photosynthesis by identifying an emergent constraint14,15,16 that combines terrestrial biosphere models with global carbon budget estimates. Our analysis suggests that CO2 fertilization increased global annual photosynthesis by 11.85 ± 1.4%, or 13.98 ± 1.63 petagrams carbon (mean ± 95% confidence interval) between 1981 and 2020. Our results help resolve conflicting estimates of the historic sensitivity of global photosynthesis to CO2, and highlight the large impact anthropogenic emissions have had on ecosystems worldwide.

U2 - 10.1038/s41586-021-04096-9

DO - 10.1038/s41586-021-04096-9

M3 - Article (Academic Journal)

C2 - 34880429

SN - 0028-0836

VL - 600

SP - 253

EP - 258

JO - Nature

JF - Nature

IS - 7888

ER -

A constraint on historic growth in global photosynthesis due to increasing CO2

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