Impacts of heterogeneous CO2 on water and carbon fluxes across the global land surface

Abstract

ABSTRACT Over the recent decades, the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration has caused large effects on the earth system. However, few studies have paid attention to the effects of heterogeneity of CO2 on the biosphere and the hydrosphere. Using a coupled diagnostic biophysical model (PML-V2) and comparing three heterogeneous CO2 datasets (GOSAT, CMIP6 and CarbonTracker) against a baseline homogeneous data (ESRL), this study investigated the effects of heterogeneous CO2 on gross primary production (GPP), actual evapotranspiration (ET) and water use efficiency (WUE) across the global. The results show that among the three heterogeneity CO2, CarbonTracker produced the highest CO2 concentration and showed the largest difference in ET (−6% to 2%), GPP (−2% to 5%) and WUE (4% to 11%) compared to those from the baseline. The most effects of the CO2 heterogeneity occurred in summer. Russia was identified as a vulnerable region with prominent decrease in GPP and an increase in ET due to CO2 heterogeneity. An obvious increase in GPP and a decrease in ET appeared in the Amazon rainforest, the Congo rainforest, and eastern Asia. On global scale, the effects of the CO2 heterogeneity on ET/GPP/WUE were not significant.