A02. Examining the role of phosphorus cycle in land responses to environmental changes

Title

Examining the role of phosphorus cycle in land responses to environmental changes

Authors

@Xiaojuan Yang, @Peter Thornton, @Daniel Ricciuto

Abstract

One of the major developments in the E3SM Land Model (ELM v1) is the introduction of a prognostic P cycle and C-N-P cycle interactions. In this study, we perform a series of single factor global scale simulations with and without P cycle on. The objective is to examine the role of phosphorus cycle dynamics on land carbon fluxes under different environmental changes. We show that the inclusion of P dynamics and C-N-P interactions leads to different land responses to changes in atmospheric CO2, climate, land use change and nitrogen deposition. Our results suggest that previous modelling effort without considering P cycle dynamics likely overestimate the land’s capacity to uptake carbon from the atmosphere. We conclude that the explicit, prognostic representation of P cycle in ESMs is essential for the prediction of future terrestrial carbon uptake and atmospheric CO2 concentration.