Articles | Volume 14, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-767-2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-14-767-2023
Research article
 | 
14 Aug 2023
Research article |  | 14 Aug 2023

Evaluating nitrogen cycling in terrestrial biosphere models: a disconnect between the carbon and nitrogen cycles

Sian Kou-Giesbrecht, Vivek K. Arora, Christian Seiler, Almut Arneth, Stefanie Falk, Atul K. Jain, Fortunat Joos, Daniel Kennedy, Jürgen Knauer, Stephen Sitch, Michael O'Sullivan, Naiqing Pan, Qing Sun, Hanqin Tian, Nicolas Vuichard, and Sönke Zaehle

Related authors

The impacts of modelling prescribed vs. dynamic land cover in a high-CO2 future scenario – greening of the Arctic and Amazonian dieback
Sian Kou-Giesbrecht, Vivek K. Arora, Christian Seiler, and Libo Wang
Biogeosciences, 21, 3339–3371, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-3339-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-3339-2024, 2024
Short summary
Global nitrous oxide budget (1980–2020)
Hanqin Tian, Naiqing Pan, Rona L. Thompson, Josep G. Canadell, Parvadha Suntharalingam, Pierre Regnier, Eric A. Davidson, Michael Prather, Philippe Ciais, Marilena Muntean, Shufen Pan, Wilfried Winiwarter, Sönke Zaehle, Feng Zhou, Robert B. Jackson, Hermann W. Bange, Sarah Berthet, Zihao Bian, Daniele Bianchi, Alexander F. Bouwman, Erik T. Buitenhuis, Geoffrey Dutton, Minpeng Hu, Akihiko Ito, Atul K. Jain, Aurich Jeltsch-Thömmes, Fortunat Joos, Sian Kou-Giesbrecht, Paul B. Krummel, Xin Lan, Angela Landolfi, Ronny Lauerwald, Ya Li, Chaoqun Lu, Taylor Maavara, Manfredi Manizza, Dylan B. Millet, Jens Mühle, Prabir K. Patra, Glen P. Peters, Xiaoyu Qin, Peter Raymond, Laure Resplandy, Judith A. Rosentreter, Hao Shi, Qing Sun, Daniele Tonina, Francesco N. Tubiello, Guido R. van der Werf, Nicolas Vuichard, Junjie Wang, Kelley C. Wells, Luke M. Western, Chris Wilson, Jia Yang, Yuanzhi Yao, Yongfa You, and Qing Zhu
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 16, 2543–2604, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-2543-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-2543-2024, 2024
Short summary
Towards an ensemble-based evaluation of land surface models in light of uncertain forcings and observations
Vivek K. Arora, Christian Seiler, Libo Wang, and Sian Kou-Giesbrecht
Biogeosciences, 20, 1313–1355, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-1313-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-1313-2023, 2023
Short summary
A novel representation of biological nitrogen fixation and competitive dynamics between nitrogen-fixing and non-fixing plants in a land model (GFDL LM4.1-BNF)
Sian Kou-Giesbrecht, Sergey Malyshev, Isabel Martínez Cano, Stephen W. Pacala, Elena Shevliakova, Thomas A. Bytnerowicz, and Duncan N. L. Menge
Biogeosciences, 18, 4143–4183, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-4143-2021,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-4143-2021, 2021
Short summary

Cited articles

Barron, A. R., Purves, D. W., and Hedin, L. O.: Facultative nitrogen fixation by canopy legumes in a lowland tropical forest, Oecologia, 165, 511–520, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-010-1838-3, 2011. 
Barton, L., Wolf, B., Rowlings, D., Scheer, C., Kiese, R., Grace, P., Stefanova, K., and Butterbach-Bahl, K.: Sampling frequency affects estimates of annual nitrous oxide fluxes, Sci. Rep., 5, 1–9, https://doi.org/10.1038/srep15912, 2015. 
Batjes, N. H., Ribeiro, E., and van Oostrum, A.: Standardised soil profile data to support global mapping and modelling (WoSIS snapshot 2019), Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12, 299–320, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-299-2020, 2020. 
Short summary
Nitrogen (N) is an essential limiting nutrient to terrestrial carbon (C) sequestration. We evaluate N cycling in an ensemble of terrestrial biosphere models. We find that variability in N processes across models is large. Models tended to overestimate C storage per unit N in vegetation and soil, which could have consequences for projecting the future terrestrial C sink. However, N cycling measurements are highly uncertain, and more are necessary to guide the development of N cycling in models.
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint