Campbell, J. Elliott: University of California, Merced (Project Lead)
Seibt, Ulrike (Ulli): UCLA (Co-Investigator)
Whelan, Mary: Rutgers University (Participant)
Project Funding:
2014 - 2017
NRA: 2013 NASA: Carbon Cycle Science
Funded by DOE
Abstract:
Recent work suggests that gross primary productivity (GPP) is largely underestimated by
global earth system models [Welp et al., Nature, 2011], reflecting the persistent challenge
in extrapolating from local process observations to earth system models. This poor
understanding of GPP at large spatial scales is of particular concern in tropical forests. In
tropical forests, some earth systems models forecast a powerful feedback between a
warming climate and a decline in GPP resulting in forest dieback. While this simulated feedback is intensely debated, we lack robust large-scale constraints on GPP that are
needed to resolve this debate. Here we propose an integrated measurement and modeling
study of regional-scale GPP in the Amazon rainforest using atmospheric carbonyl sulfide to
provide a new constraint on GPP mechanisms in earth system models. Project activities
include three primary components: (1) a field campaign in the Brazilian Amazon will
provide the first tropical measurements of COS using eddy covariance, chamber, and
airborne platforms in order to assess the relationship between CO2 GPP fluxes and
ecosystem COS fluxes; (2) eddy covariance and chamber data will be used in the
development and application of ecosystem models of COS and CO2 fluxes; (3) these
ecosystem flux simulations and the airborne observations will be used in a mesoscale
inverse model to provide top-down constrains on regional GPP and an assessment of the
GPP representation in earth systems models. The project applies a unique analysis system
field tested by the U.S. investigators on our team and the complementary major research
instrumentation available from the Brazilian investigators on our team. This project will
provide the fundamental ecosystem measurements needed to extend the COS-GPP tracer
approach to the tropics and an application to a critical uncertainty for carbon-climate
feedbacks. In addition to the carbon cycle, the new understanding of COS resulting from
this project may have broad impacts in related scientific disciplines including its use as a
conservative tracer of convection in the biophysical climate investigations of the
GOAmazon campaign.
Publications:
Campbell, J. E., Berry, J. A., Seibt, U., Smith, S. J., Montzka, S. A., Launois, T., Belviso, S., Bopp, L., Laine, M. 2017. Large historical growth in global terrestrial gross primary production. Nature. 544(7648), 84-87. DOI: 10.1038/nature22030
Campbell, J. E., et al. (2017) Assessing a new clue to how much carbon plants take up, EOS, 98, 24-29
Campbell, J. E., Whelan, M. E., Seibt, U., Smith, S. J., Berry, J. A., Hilton, T. W. 2015. Atmospheric carbonyl sulfide sources from anthropogenic activity: Implications for carbon cycle constraints. Geophysical Research Letters. 42(8), 3004-3010. DOI: 10.1002/2015GL063445
Glatthor, N., Hopfner, M., Baker, I. T., Berry, J., Campbell, J. E., Kawa, S. R., Krysztofiak, G., Leyser, A., Sinnhuber, B., Stiller, G. P., Stinecipher, J., von Clarmann, T. 2015. Tropical sources and sinks of carbonyl sulfide observed from space. Geophysical Research Letters. 42(22), 10,082-10,090. DOI: 10.1002/2015GL066293
Hilton, T. W., Whelan, M. E., Zumkehr, A., Kulkarni, S., Berry, J. A., Baker, I. T., Montzka, S. A., Sweeney, C., Miller, B. R., Elliott Campbell, J. 2017. Peak growing season gross uptake of carbon in North America is largest in the Midwest USA. Nature Climate Change. 7(6), 450-454. DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE3272
Wang, Y., Deutscher, N. M., Palm, M., Warneke, T., Notholt, J., Baker, I., Berry, J., Suntharalingam, P., Jones, N., Mahieu, E., Lejeune, B., Hannigan, J., Conway, S., Mendonca, J., Strong, K., Campbell, J. E., Wolf, A., Kremser, S. 2016. Towards understanding the variability in biospheric CO<sub>2</sub> fluxes: using FTIR spectrometry and a chemical transport model to investigate the sources and sinks of carbonyl sulfide and its link to CO<sub>2</sub>. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 16(4), 2123-2138. DOI: 10.5194/acp-16-2123-2016
Whelan, M. E., Hilton, T. W., Berry, J. A., Berkelhammer, M., Desai, A. R., Campbell, J. E. 2016. Carbonyl sulfide exchange in soils for better estimates of ecosystem carbon uptake. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 16(6), 3711-3726. DOI: 10.5194/acp-16-3711-2016
Zumkehr, A., Hilton, T. W., Whelan, M., Smith, S., Campbell, J. E. 2017. Gridded anthropogenic emissions inventory and atmospheric transport of carbonyl sulfide in the U.S. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. 122(4), 2169-2178. DOI: 10.1002/2016jd025550
More details may be found in the following project profile(s):