Cited by 143Plant Water Relations and Carbon DynamicsPlant responses to elevated CO2Remote Sensing in Agriculture

A constraint on historic growth in global photosynthesis due to rising CO2

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Keenan, T. F., Luo, X., Stocker, B. D., De Kauwe, M. G., Medlyn, B. E., Prentice, I. C., Smith, N. G., Terrer, C. +3 more·2023·Nature Climate Change

Abstract

Theory predicts that rising CO 2 increases global photosynthesis, a process known as CO 2 fertilization, and that this is responsible for much of the current terrestrial carbon sink. The estimated magnitude of the historic CO 2 fertilization, however, differs by an order of magnitude between long-term proxies, remote sensing-based estimates and terrestrial biosphere models. Here we constrain the likely historic effect of CO 2 on global photosynthesis by combining terrestrial biosphere models, ecological optimality theory, remote sensing approaches and an emergent constraint based on global carbon budget estimates. Our analysis suggests that CO 2 fertilization increased global annual terrestrial photosynthesis by 13.5 ± 3.5% or 15.9 ± 2.9 PgC (mean ± s.d.) between 1981 and 2020. Our results help resolve conflicting estimates of the historic sensitivity of global terrestrial photosynthesis to CO 2 and highlight the large impact anthropogenic emissions have had on ecosystems worldwide.

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  • The winning model from the BioMassters data challenge, used as the baseline for comparison with Prithvi-EO-2.0, achieved an RMSE of 27.49 in the holdout test set.

    “The winning model from the BioMassters data challenge was used as the baseline for comparison with Prithvi-EO-2.0. This model is based on a U-Net architecture with temporal attention encoding [40], using all 12 timestamps and all 15 bands from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 imagery as inputs for each yearly AGB prediction. It achieved an RMSE of 27.49 in the holdout test set.”

    From Prithvi-EO-2.0: A Versatile Multitemporal Foundation Model for Earth Observation Applications (2026) · cites this paper as [40]

    The cited paper’s ‘Constraining terrestrial photosynthesis CO₂ sensitivity’ section discusses global photosynthesis and terrestrial carbon-sink models, not the BioMassters challenge. Searches for BioMassters, Prithvi-EO-2.0, U-Net, and the reported holdout RMSE of 27.49 found no passage addressing the claim; page numbers were not available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.78)

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  1. Sanderson, B. et al. On structural errors in emergent constraints. Earth Syst. Dynam. Discuss. https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-2020-85 (2021). · DOI

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Authors
Keenan, T. F., Luo, X., Stocker, B. D., De Kauwe, M. G., Medlyn, B. E., Prentice, I. C., Smith, N. G., Terrer, C., Wang, H., Zhang, Y., & Zhou, S.
Affiliations
  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US)
  • University of Bern (CH)
  • Western Sydney University (AU)
  • Imperial College London (GB)
  • Texas Tech University (US)
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
  • Tsinghua University (CN)
Corresponding author
Keenan, T. F.
Venue
Nature Climate Change
Published
2023-11-27
Volume
13
Issue
12
Pages
1376-1381
ISSN
  • 1758-678X (ISSN-L)
  • 1758-6798
OpenAlex
W4389045820
Cited by
138
References
75
Citations by year
2026: 44 · 2025: 55 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 2
FWCI
15.46
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature Climate Change (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • DORA WSL (Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
  • Explore Bristol Research (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Spiral (Imperial College London) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • ThinkTech (Texas Tech University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Repository for Publications and Research Data (ETH Zurich) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • ETH Zürich Research Collection
Funders
  • National Science Foundation (DE-AC52-07-NA27344, DEAC02-05CH11231)
  • U.S. Department of Energy (-AC02-05CH11231, DEAC5207NA27344, AC52‐07NA27344, 05CH11231, DESC0021023, DE AC02 05CH11231, DE-AC02-)
  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration (DE-AC02-05CH11231, DE-AC52-07NA27344, NNH17AE86I, 80NSSC21K1705)
  • Texas Tech University
  • Imperial College London
  • European Commission (HORIZON2020, DE-AC02-05CH11231, 787203)
  • Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (181115)
  • Nuclear Safety and Security Commission
  • Climate Extremes (CE170100023)
  • Office of Science (DEAC02–05CH11231, AC02-05CH11231, DE-AC02, DE-AC52-07NA27344, 05CH11231)
  • Australian Research Council (DP190101823)
  • Biological and Environmental Research (05CH11231, DE-AC02 − 05CH11231, DE-AC52-07NA27344, AC02-05CH11231)
  • Laboratory Directed Research and Development (DEAC02-05CH11231, DE- AC52-07NA27344)
  • Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (DE‐AC5207NA27344, 07NA27344, 20-ERD-055, DE-AC02-05CH11231, AC52-07NA27344)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Plant responses to elevated CO2
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Remote Sensing in Agriculture
Keywords
CO2 fertilization, terrestrial carbon sink, global carbon budget, terrestrial biosphere models, remote sensing of vegetation, anthropogenic CO2 emissions, carbon cycle

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