Primary Production of the Biosphere: Integrating Terrestrial and Oceanic Components
Abstract
Integrating conceptually similar models of the growth of marine and terrestrial primary producers yielded an estimated global net primary production (NPP) of 104.9 petagrams of carbon per year, with roughly equal contributions from land and oceans. Approaches based on satellite indices of absorbed solar radiation indicate marked heterogeneity in NPP for both land and oceans, reflecting the influence of physical and ecological processes. The spatial and temporal distributions of ocean NPP are consistent with primary limitation by light, nutrients, and temperature. On land, water limitation imposes additional constraints. On land and ocean, progressive changes in NPP can result in altered carbon storage, although contrasts in mechanisms of carbon storage and rates of organic matter turnover result in a range of relations between carbon storage and changes in NPP.
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The CASA modeling activity has been supported through NASA's Earth Observing System program as part of an Interdisciplinary Science grant to P. J. Sellers and H. A. Mooney and a grant from the Western Regional Center of the Department of Energy National Institute for Global Environmental Change to C.B.F. The VGPM activity has been supported through NASA grants to P.F. and M.J.B. J.T.R. was supported by a NASA Earth System Science Graduate Student Fellowship. Thanks to A. Lowry, D. Kolber, Z. Kolber, M. Thompson, and C. Malmström for assistance in developing and exercising the models. This is Carnegie Institution of Washington Department of Plant Biology publication 1279.
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Science
Volume 281 | Issue 5374
10 July 1998
10 July 1998
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Received: 28 March 1998
Accepted: 8 June 1998
Published in print: 10 July 1998
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