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

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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.
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