Modelling the terrestrial nitrogen and phosphorus cycle in the UVic ESCM version 2.10

Sisto, Makcim L. De; MacDougall, Andrew H.; Mengis, Nadine; Antoniello, Sophia

doi:10.5194/gmd-2022-191

Cited by 1 publication

(5 citation statements)

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“…The inclusion of P in ESMs and the benefits of CNP models has been shown to improve the accuracy of the the terrestrial carbon cycle (Wang et al , 2010;Goll et al , 2017;De Sisto et al , 2022). However, the necessity of models of including P in their structures is debatable.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A terrestrial nitrogen and phosphorous model has recently been developed for the UVic ESCM (De Sisto et al , 2022). The nitrogen cycle module consists of three organic pools (litter, soil organic matter, and vegetation) and two inorganic pools (NH + 4 and NO −…”

Section: Model Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the same time N can flow from the inorganic to the soil organic pool via immobilization. A complete description of the nitrogen cycle can be found in Wania et al (2012) andDe Sisto et al (2022).…”

Section: Model Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, in a study by Wieder et al (2015) ESMs with nitrogen and nitrogen-phosphorus limitation were projected to decrease net primary productivity by 19% and 25%. Hence, the implementation of nutrient limitation in ESMs has been shown to improve the representation of carbon uptake in land (Wang et al , 2007(Wang et al , , 2010Goll et al , 2017;De Sisto et al , 2022), and thus will effect the carbon budget.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This value is well estimated from historical records (Arias et al , 2021). Nutrient limitation can be used to improve historical warming accuracy in emission forced ESMs simulations (De Sisto et al , 2022). The TCRE represents the response of temperatures to CO 2 emissions, hence different models can represent different remaining carbon budgets based on different carbon-climate sensitivities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effect of terrestrial nutrient limitation on the estimation of the remaining carbon budget

Sisto

MacDougall

2023

Preprint

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Abstract. The carbon cycle plays a foundational role in the estimation of the remaining carbon budget. It is intrinsic for the determination of the transient climate response to cumulative CO2 emissions and the zero emissions commitment. For the terrestrial carbon cycle, nutrient limitation has a core regulation on the amount of carbon fixed by terrestrial vegetation. Hence, the addition of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus in land model structures in Earth system models is essential for an accurate representation of the carbon cycle feedback in future climate projections. Thereby, the estimation of the remaining carbon budget is impacted by the representation of nutrient limitation in modelled terrestrial ecosystems, yet it is rarely accounted for. Here, we estimate the carbon budget and remaining carbon budget of a nutrient limited Earth system model, using nitrogen and phosphorus cycles to limit vegetation productivity and biomass. We use eight Shared Socioeconomic Pathways scenarios and idealized experiments on three distinct model structures: 1) carbon cycle without nutrient limitation, 2) carbon cycle with terrestrial nitrogen limitation and 3) carbon cycle with terrestrial nitrogen and phosphorus limitation. To capture the uncertainty of the remaining carbon budget, three different climate sensitives were tuned for each model version. Our results show that overall the nutrient limitation reduced the remaining carbon budget for all simulations in comparison with the carbon cycle without nutrient limitation. Between the nitrogen and nitrogen-phosphorus limitation, the latter had the lowest remaining carbon budget. The mean remaining carbon budget from the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways scenarios simulations for the 1.5 °C target in the no nutrient limitation, nitrogen limited and nitrogen-phosphorus limited models obtained were 228, 185 and 175 Pg C respectively, relative to year 2020. For the 2 °C target the mean remaining carbon budget were 471, 373 and 351 Pg C for the no nutrient limitation, nitrogen limited and nitrogen-phosphorus limited models respectively, relative to year 2020. This represents a reduction of 19 and 24 % for the 1.5 °C target and 21 and 26 % for the 2 °C target in the nitrogen and nitrogen-phosphorus limited simulations compared to the no nutrient limitation model. These results show that terrestrial nutrient limitations constitute an important factor to be considered when estimating or interpreting remaining carbon budgets and are an essential uncertainty of remaining carbon budgets from Earth system model simulations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Model Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Model Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%