Transient dynamics of terrestrial carbon storage: mathematical foundation and its applications

作者：Yiqi Luo, Zheng Shi, Xingjie Lu, Jianyang Xia, Junyi Liang, Jiang Jiang, Ying Wang, Matthew J. Smith, Lifen Jiang, Anders Ahlström, Benito M. Chen‐Charpentier, Oleksandra Hararuk, Alan M. Hastings, Forrest M. Hoffman, Belinda E. Medlyn, Shuli Niu, Martin Rasmussen, Katherine EO Todd-Brown, Ying‐Ping Wang · 发表于：Biogeosciences · 年份：2017 · DOI：10.5194/bg-14-145-2017 · 被引用次数：117 · 研究领域：Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics、Climate variability and models、Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics

Abstract. Terrestrial ecosystems have absorbed roughly 30 % of anthropogenic CO2 emissions over the past decades, but it is unclear whether this carbon (C) sink will endure into the future. Despite extensive modeling and experimental and observational studies, what fundamentally determines transient dynamics of terrestrial C storage under global change is still not very clear. Here we develop a new framework for understanding transient dynamics of terrestrial C storage through mathematical analysis and numerical experiments. Our analysis indicates that the ultimate force driving ecosystem C storage change is the C storage capacity, which is jointly determined by ecosystem C input (e.g., net primary production, NPP) and residence time. Since both C input and residence time vary with time, the C storage capacity is time-dependent and acts as a moving attractor that actual C storage chases. The rate of change in C storage is proportional to the C storage potential, which is the difference between the current storage and the storage capacity. The C storage capacity represents instantaneous responses of the land C cycle to external forcing, whereas the C storage potential represents the internal capability of the land C cycle to influence the C change trajectory in the next time step. The influence happens through redistribution of net C pool changes in a network of pools with different residence times. Moreover, this and our other studies have demonstrated that one matrix equatio...