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Enhanced global primary production by biogenic aerosol via diffuse radiation fertilization

Nature Geoscience volume 11, pages 640–644 (2018)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 26 August 2019

Abstract

Terrestrial vegetation releases large quantities of plant volatiles into the atmosphere that can then oxidize to form secondary organic aerosol. These particles affect plant productivity through the diffuse radiation fertilization effect by altering the balance between direct and diffuse radiation reaching the Earth’s surface. Here, using a suite of models describing relevant coupled components of the Earth system, we quantify the impacts of biogenic secondary organic aerosol on plant photosynthesis through this fertilization effect. We show that this leads to a net primary productivity enhancement of 1.23 Pg C yr−1 (range 0.76–1.61 Pg C yr−1 due to uncertainty in biogenic secondary organic aerosol formation). Notably, this productivity enhancement is twice the mass of biogenic volatile organic compound emissions (and ~30 times larger than the mass of carbon in biogenic secondary organic aerosol) causing it. Hence, our simulations indicate that there is a strong positive ecosystem feedback between biogenic volatile organic compound emissions and plant productivity through plant-canopy light-use efficiency. We estimate a gain of 1.07 in global biogenic volatile organic compound emissions resulting from this feedback.

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Fig. 1: Comparison of monthly-mean simulated AOD against AERONET observations.
Fig. 2: Simulated impact of biogenic SOA on surface radiation.
Fig. 3: Simulated diffuse radiation fertilization effect caused by the 50 Tg yr−1 biogenic SOA source.
Fig. 4: Simulated global feedback loop between plant emissions and plant productivity.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (NE/J004723/1, NE/J009822/1 and NE/K015966/1) and EU Horizon 2020 (SC5-01-2014; grant agreement 641816). D.V.S. acknowledges support from a Philip Leverhulme Prize and C.N.H. thanks Lancaster University for funding. We thank the modellers from the TRENDY multi-model intercomparison project for access to their DGVM output and the principal investigators and their staff for establishing and maintaining the AERONET sites used in this study. We also thank A. Jarvis for initial discussions and N. Restrepo-Coupe and D. Bonal for access to the data used in Supplementary Information Fig. 7.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    A. Rap, C. E. Scott, C. L. Reddington & D. V. Spracklen

  2. College of Life and Environmental Sciences, Geography Department, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    L. Mercado

  3. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, UK

    L. Mercado & R. J. Ellis

  4. Department of Chemistry, University of York, York, UK

    S. Garraway & M. J. Evans

  5. Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    D. J. Beerling

  6. Birmingham Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR), University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    A. R. MacKenzie

  7. Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    C. N. Hewitt

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Contributions

A.R., D.J.B., A.R.M., C.N.H. and D.V.S. contributed to the design of the study. A.R., C.E.S., C.L.R. and D.V.S. analysed and interpreted the results. A.R. carried out the radiation and land-surface modelling. C.E.S. carried out the aerosol modelling. C.L.R. analysed the AERONET data. L.M. and R.J.E. developed the land-surface modelling framework. S.G. and M.J.E. provided the GEOS-Chem simulation. All authors contributed to scientific discussions and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to A. Rap.

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Supplementary Tables 1, Supplementary Figures 1–7.

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Rap, A., Scott, C.E., Reddington, C.L. et al. Enhanced global primary production by biogenic aerosol via diffuse radiation fertilization. Nature Geosci 11, 640–644 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-018-0208-3

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