Agricultural fertilization significantly enhances amplitude of land-atmosphere CO2 exchange

Danica L. Lombardozzi; William R. Wieder; Gretchen Keppel-Aleks; Jiameng Lai; Zhenqi Luo; Ying Sun; Isla R. Simpson; David M. Lawrence; Gordon B. Bonan; Xin Lin; Charles D. Koven; Pierre Friedlingstein; Keith Lindsay

doi:10.1038/s41467-025-56730-z

Agricultural fertilization significantly enhances amplitude of land-atmosphere CO₂ exchange

Danica L. Lombardozzi
, William R. Wieder
, Gretchen Keppel-Aleks
, Jiameng Lai
, Zhenqi Luo
, Ying Sun
, Isla R. Simpson
, David M. Lawrence
, Gordon B. Bonan
, Xin Lin
, Charles D. Koven
, Pierre Friedlingstein
, Keith Lindsay

Colorado State University
National Center for Atmospheric Research
University of Colorado Boulder
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Cornell University
Lab. Sci. du Climat et de l'Environ.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
University of Exeter
École normale supérieure

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Observations show an increase in the seasonal cycle amplitude of CO₂ in northern latitudes over the past half century. Although multiple drivers contribute, observations and inversion models cannot quantitatively account for the factors contributing to the increased CO₂ amplitude and older versions of Earth System Models (ESMs) do not simulate it. Here we show that several current generation ESMs are closer to the observed CO₂ amplitude and highlight that in the Community Earth System Model (CESM) agricultural nitrogen (N) fertilization increases CO₂ amplitude by 1-3 ppm throughout the Northern Hemisphere and up to 9 ppm in agricultural hotspots. While agricultural N fertilization is the largest contributor to the enhanced amplitude (45%) in Northern Hemisphere land-atmosphere carbon fluxes in CESM, higher CO₂ concentrations and warmer temperatures also contribute, though to a lesser extent (40% and 18% respectively). Our results emphasize the fundamental role of agricultural management in Northern Hemisphere carbon cycle feedbacks and illustrate that agricultural N fertilization should be considered in future carbon cycle simulations.

Original language	English
Article number	1742
Number of pages	9
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	16
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56730-z
State	Published - Feb 18 2025
Externally published	Yes

Funding

The CESM project is supported primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF). This material is based upon work supported by the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research, which is a major facility sponsored by the NSF under Cooperative Agreement 1852977. Computing and data storage resources, including the Cheyenne (doi:10.5065/D6RX99HX) and Derecho (doi:10.5065/qx9a-pg09) supercomputers, were provided by the Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) at NCAR. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Program, which, through its Working Group on Coupled Modeling, coordinated and promoted CMIP5 and CMIP6. We thank the climate. Federation (ESGF) for archiving the data and providing access, and the multiple funding agencies who support CMIP5, CMIP6, and ESGF. We would like to thank Pieter Tans and Edward Dlugokencky for the use of NOAA Flask data to evaluate model simulations, and Katie Dagon, Deepak Cherian, Thomas Martin, and Anderson Banihirwe for help troubleshooting code and downloading CMIP6 data. We would also like to thank Heather Graven for providing processed observational data from HIPPO and IGY campaigns. DLL and WRW were supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture NIFA Award 2015-67003-23485 and the National Science Foundation DISES Award 2409246. DLL was also supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture NIFA Award 2021-0455.

Funders	Funder number
U.S. Department of Agriculture NIFA Award 2015-67003-23485 U.S. Department of Agriculture NIFA Award 2021-0455
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Nsf National Center for Atmospheric Research	1852977
NSF
Federation (ESGF)	2021-0455
U.S. Department of Agriculture NIFA

Keywords

Benchmarking
Carbon
Earth system model
Fluxes
Green-revolution
Nitrogen
Northern ecosystems
Photosynthesis
Primary productivity
Seasonal amplitude

Access to Document

10.1038/s41467-025-56730-z

Cite this

Lombardozzi, D. L., Wieder, W. R., Keppel-Aleks, G., Lai, J., Luo, Z., Sun, Y., Simpson, I. R., Lawrence, D. M., Bonan, G. B., Lin, X., Koven, C. D., Friedlingstein, P., & Lindsay, K. (2025). Agricultural fertilization significantly enhances amplitude of land-atmosphere CO₂ exchange. Nature Communications, 16(1), Article 1742. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56730-z

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abstract = "Observations show an increase in the seasonal cycle amplitude of CO2 in northern latitudes over the past half century. Although multiple drivers contribute, observations and inversion models cannot quantitatively account for the factors contributing to the increased CO2 amplitude and older versions of Earth System Models (ESMs) do not simulate it. Here we show that several current generation ESMs are closer to the observed CO2 amplitude and highlight that in the Community Earth System Model (CESM) agricultural nitrogen (N) fertilization increases CO2 amplitude by 1-3 ppm throughout the Northern Hemisphere and up to 9 ppm in agricultural hotspots. While agricultural N fertilization is the largest contributor to the enhanced amplitude (45\%) in Northern Hemisphere land-atmosphere carbon fluxes in CESM, higher CO2 concentrations and warmer temperatures also contribute, though to a lesser extent (40\% and 18\% respectively). Our results emphasize the fundamental role of agricultural management in Northern Hemisphere carbon cycle feedbacks and illustrate that agricultural N fertilization should be considered in future carbon cycle simulations.",

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AU - Sun, Ying

AU - Simpson, Isla R.

AU - Lawrence, David M.

AU - Bonan, Gordon B.

AU - Lin, Xin

AU - Koven, Charles D.

AU - Friedlingstein, Pierre

AU - Lindsay, Keith

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2025.

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Y1 - 2025/2/18

N2 - Observations show an increase in the seasonal cycle amplitude of CO2 in northern latitudes over the past half century. Although multiple drivers contribute, observations and inversion models cannot quantitatively account for the factors contributing to the increased CO2 amplitude and older versions of Earth System Models (ESMs) do not simulate it. Here we show that several current generation ESMs are closer to the observed CO2 amplitude and highlight that in the Community Earth System Model (CESM) agricultural nitrogen (N) fertilization increases CO2 amplitude by 1-3 ppm throughout the Northern Hemisphere and up to 9 ppm in agricultural hotspots. While agricultural N fertilization is the largest contributor to the enhanced amplitude (45%) in Northern Hemisphere land-atmosphere carbon fluxes in CESM, higher CO2 concentrations and warmer temperatures also contribute, though to a lesser extent (40% and 18% respectively). Our results emphasize the fundamental role of agricultural management in Northern Hemisphere carbon cycle feedbacks and illustrate that agricultural N fertilization should be considered in future carbon cycle simulations.

AB - Observations show an increase in the seasonal cycle amplitude of CO2 in northern latitudes over the past half century. Although multiple drivers contribute, observations and inversion models cannot quantitatively account for the factors contributing to the increased CO2 amplitude and older versions of Earth System Models (ESMs) do not simulate it. Here we show that several current generation ESMs are closer to the observed CO2 amplitude and highlight that in the Community Earth System Model (CESM) agricultural nitrogen (N) fertilization increases CO2 amplitude by 1-3 ppm throughout the Northern Hemisphere and up to 9 ppm in agricultural hotspots. While agricultural N fertilization is the largest contributor to the enhanced amplitude (45%) in Northern Hemisphere land-atmosphere carbon fluxes in CESM, higher CO2 concentrations and warmer temperatures also contribute, though to a lesser extent (40% and 18% respectively). Our results emphasize the fundamental role of agricultural management in Northern Hemisphere carbon cycle feedbacks and illustrate that agricultural N fertilization should be considered in future carbon cycle simulations.

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KW - Primary productivity

KW - Seasonal amplitude

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