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. 2014 Nov 17;9(11):e112810.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0112810. eCollection 2014.

Complex spatiotemporal responses of global terrestrial primary production to climate change and increasing atmospheric CO2 in the 21st century

Shufen Pan  1 , Hanqin Tian  2 , Shree R S Dangal  2 , Chi Zhang  3 , Jia Yang  2 , Bo Tao  2 , Zhiyun Ouyang  4 , Xiaoke Wang  4 , Chaoqun Lu  2 , Wei Ren  2 , Kamaljit Banger  2 , Qichun Yang  2 , Bowen Zhang  2 , Xia Li  2
Affiliations

Complex spatiotemporal responses of global terrestrial primary production to climate change and increasing atmospheric CO2 in the 21st century

Shufen Pan et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Quantitative information on the response of global terrestrial net primary production (NPP) to climate change and increasing atmospheric CO2 is essential for climate change adaptation and mitigation in the 21st century. Using a process-based ecosystem model (the Dynamic Land Ecosystem Model, DLEM), we quantified the magnitude and spatiotemporal variations of contemporary (2000s) global NPP, and projected its potential responses to climate and CO2 changes in the 21st century under the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) A2 and B1 of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We estimated a global terrestrial NPP of 54.6 (52.8-56.4) PgC yr(-1) as a result of multiple factors during 2000-2009. Climate change would either reduce global NPP (4.6%) under the A2 scenario or slightly enhance NPP (2.2%) under the B1 scenario during 2010-2099. In response to climate change, global NPP would first increase until surface air temperature increases by 1.5 °C (until the 2030s) and then level-off or decline after it increases by more than 1.5 °C (after the 2030s). This result supports the Copenhagen Accord Acknowledgement, which states that staying below 2 °C may not be sufficient and the need to potentially aim for staying below 1.5 °C. The CO2 fertilization effect would result in a 12%-13.9% increase in global NPP during the 21st century. The relative CO2 fertilization effect, i.e. change in NPP on per CO2 (ppm) bases, is projected to first increase quickly then level off in the 2070s and even decline by the end of the 2080s, possibly due to CO2 saturation and nutrient limitation. Terrestrial NPP responses to climate change and elevated atmospheric CO2 largely varied among biomes, with the largest increases in the tundra and boreal needleleaf deciduous forest. Compared to the low emission scenario (B1), the high emission scenario (A2) would lead to larger spatiotemporal variations in NPP, and more dramatic and counteracting impacts from climate and increasing atmospheric CO2.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. The simplified framework of Dynamic Land Ecosystem Model (DLEM) for assessing the effects of climate change and increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration on global terrestrial net primary production (NPP).
Figure 2
Figure 2. Contemporary vegetation map of the world as observed from the DLEM model for the year 2010.
TrWW: Tropical Woody Wetlands; TWW: Temperate Woody Wetlands, BWW: Boreal Woody Wetlands, Her.W: Herbaceous Wetlands, EShrub: Evergreen Shrubland; DShrub: Deciduous Shrubland; TrBEF: Tropical Broadleaf Evergreen Forest; TrBDF: Tropical Broadleaf Deciduous Forest; TNDF: Temperate Needleleaf Deciduous Forest; TNEF: Temperate Needleleaf Evergreen Forest; TBEF: Temperate Broadleaf Evergreen Forest; TBDF: Temperate Broadleaf Deciduous Forest; BNDF: Boreal Needleleaf Deciduous Forest; BNEF: Boreal Needleleaf Evergreen Forest; Others: Desert & Ice.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Input datasets used for driving the DLEM model based on CRUNCEP analysis. Temperature and precipitation change for A2 (A) and B1 (B) scenario and changes in CO2 concentration between A2 and B1 emission scenario.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Spatial pattern of temperature and precipitation estimated as an average difference between 2099–2090 and 2000–2009: temperature (A) and precipitation (B) under A2 scenario and temperature (C) and precipitation (D) under B1 scenario.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Spatial patterns of MODIS-NPP (A) and DLEM-simulated NPP (B) during 2000–2009 and comparison of the DLEM-simulated NPP with MODIS-NPP (C) for 6000 randomly selected grids.
Figure 6
Figure 6. Effect of inter-annual variation in precipitation and temperature on global net primary productivity during the contemporary period (2000–2009) (left panel) and changes in mean annual NPP of major biomes as a function of temperature and precipitation (right panel).
Left Panel: Mean annual temperature anomalies (a), annual precipitation anomalies (b), and net primary productivity (c) and right panel: average (2000–2009) temperature (a) average precipitation (b) and average net primary productivity (c).
Figure 7
Figure 7. Temporal pattern of change in terrestrial NPP: Global (A), low-latitude (B), mid-latitude (C) and high-latitude (D) as a function of climate and increasing atmospheric CO2 under A2 and B1.
Figure 8
Figure 8. Effect of temperature and precipitation on global net primary productivity during the rest of the 21st century (2010–2099) under A2 (left panel) and B1 (right panel) climate change scenarios.
Figure 9
Figure 9. Spatial variation in terrestrial NPP as influenced by climate-only and climate with CO2.
Climate only (A) and climate with CO2 (B) under A2 scenario, and climate only (C) and climate plus CO2 (D) under B1 scenario.
Figure 10
Figure 10. Spatial variation in precipitation and NPP estimated as a difference between dry year and long term (2000–2099) mean: precipitation difference between 2019 and long term mean (A) for A2 scenario, NPP difference between 2019 and long term mean (B) for A2 scenario climate-only simulation, precipitation difference between 2020 and long term mean (C) for B1 scenario and NPP difference between 2020 and long term mean (D) for B1 climate-only simulation.
Figure 11
Figure 11. Contribution of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration to NPP during the 2090s calculated as a difference between climate plus CO2 and climate-only experiments: A2 scenario (A) and B1 scenario (B).
Figure 12
Figure 12. The effect of CO2 ferilization on terrestrial NPP across the globe (A), low-latitude (B), mid-latitude (C), and high-latitude (D) under A2 and B1 scenarios.
For each unit of CO2 (ppm), the A2 scenario show a highest rate of increase in NPP (mgC m−2) compared to B1 scenario.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

This study was supported by NSF Decadal and Regional Climate Prediction using Earth System Models (AGS-1243220), NSF Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (1210360), NASA Interdisciplinary Science Program (NNX10AU06G, NNG04GM39C), US Department of Energy NICCR Program (DUKE-UN-07-SC-NICCR-1014). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.