Articles | Volume 19, issue 14
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3491-2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3491-2022
Research article
 | 
27 Jul 2022
Research article |  | 27 Jul 2022

Assessment of the impacts of biological nitrogen fixation structural uncertainty in CMIP6 earth system models

Taraka Davies-Barnard, Sönke Zaehle, and Pierre Friedlingstein

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Cited articles

Best, M. J., Pryor, M., Clark, D. B., Rooney, G. G., Essery, R. L. H., Ménard, C. B., Edwards, J. M., Hendry, M. A., Porson, A., and Gedney, N.: The Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES), model description–Part 1: energy and water fluxes, Geosci. Model Dev., 4, 677–699, 2011. 
Cherchi, A., Fogli, P. G., Lovato, T., Peano, D., Iovino, D., Gualdi, S., Masina, S., Scoccimarro, E., Materia, S., Bellucci, A., and Navarra, A.: Global Mean Climate and Main Patterns of Variability in the CMCC-CM2 Coupled Model, J. Adv. Model. Earth Sy., 11, 185–209, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018MS001369, 2019. 
Clark, D. B., Mercado, L. M., Sitch, S., Jones, C. D., Gedney, N., Best, M. J., Pryor, M., Rooney, G. G., Essery, R. L. H., Blyth, E., Boucher, O., Harding, R. J., Huntingford, C., and Cox, P. M.: The Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES), model description – Part 2: Carbon fluxes and vegetation dynamics, Geosci. Model Dev., 4, 701–722, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-4-701-2011, 2011. 
Cleveland, C. C., Townsend, A. R., Schimel, D. S., Fisher, H., Howarth, R. W., Hedin, L. O., Perakis, S. S., Latty, E. F., Fischer, J. C. V., Elseroad, A., and Wasson, M. F.: Global patterns of terrestrial biological nitrogen (N2) fixation in natural ecosystems, Global Biogeochem. Cy., 13, 623–645, https://doi.org/10.1029/1999GB900014, 1999. 
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Short summary
Biological nitrogen fixation is the largest natural input of new nitrogen onto land. Earth system models mainly represent global total terrestrial biological nitrogen fixation within observational uncertainties but overestimate tropical fixation. The model range of increase in biological nitrogen fixation in the SSP3-7.0 scenario is 3 % to 87 %. While biological nitrogen fixation is a key source of new nitrogen, its predictive power for net primary productivity in models is limited.
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