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Nitrogen constraints on terrestrial carbon uptake: Implications for the global carbon‐climate feedback
Author(s) -
Wang YingPing,
Houlton Benjamin Z.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2009gl041009
Subject(s) - environmental science , greenhouse gas , global warming , climate change , carbon cycle , nutrient , carbon fibers , atmospheric sciences , carbon flux , nitrogen fixation , pace , global change , nitrogen , ecosystem , ecology , computer science , geography , biology , chemistry , organic chemistry , algorithm , composite number , geology , geodesy
Carbon‐climate feedback has been identified as one of the key areas of synthesis for the next Inter‐governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); however, most of the models on which the IPCC will rely are yet to consider vital interactions between nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) cycles. A major impediment to including N limitation in model predictions has been the lack of constraint to rates of N fixation worldwide. Here we use a theoretical framework that considers interactions of C and nutrients to estimate rates of terrestrial N fixation, and thereby examining how the constraints of N on land C uptake and global warming. We show that most global models without nutrient limitations significantly overestimated land C uptake, thus underestimating both the pace and magnitude of the predicted global warming. We suggest that the next IPCC assessment should consider nutrient constraints on carbon‐climate feedback and the pace of global warming.