Ideas and perspectives: Allocation of carbon from net primary production in models is inconsistent with observations of the age of respired carbon

Sierra, Carlos A.; Ceballos-Núñez, Verónika; Hartmann, Henrik; Herrera-Ramírez, David; Metzler, Holger

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3727-2022

Articles | Volume 19, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3727-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3727-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 16

Ideas and perspectives

|

16 Aug 2022

Ideas and perspectives |

| 16 Aug 2022

Ideas and perspectives: Allocation of carbon from net primary production in models is inconsistent with observations of the age of respired carbon

Carlos A. Sierra, Verónika Ceballos-Núñez, Henrik Hartmann, David Herrera-Ramírez, and Holger Metzler

Model code and software

Allocation of carbon from Net Primary Production in models is inconsistent with observations of the age of respired carbon Sierra, Carlos, Ceballos-Núñez, Veronika, Hartmann, Henrik, Herrera-Ramírez, David, & Metzler, Holger https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6548611

Short summary

Empirical work that estimates the age of respired CO₂ from vegetation tissue shows that it may take from years to decades to respire previously produced photosynthates. However, many ecosystem models represent respiration processes in a form that cannot reproduce these observations. In this contribution, we attempt to provide compelling evidence, based on recent research, with the aim to promote a change in the predominant paradigm implemented in ecosystem models.