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Science 14 November 2008:
Vol. 322. no. 5904, pp. 1085 - 1088
DOI: 10.1126/science.1164015
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Reports
Photosynthetic Control of Atmospheric Carbonyl Sulfide During the Growing Season
J. E. Campbell,1*
G. R. Carmichael,2
T. Chai,3
M. Mena-Carrasco,4,5
Y. Tang,2
D. R. Blake,6
N. J. Blake,6
S. A. Vay,7
G. J. Collatz,8
I. Baker,9
J. A. Berry,10
S. A. Montzka,11
C. Sweeney,12
J. L. Schnoor,1
C. O. Stanier2
Climate models incorporate photosynthesis-climate feedbacks, yet we lack robust tools for large-scale assessments of these processes. Recent work suggests that carbonyl sulfide (COS), a trace gas consumed by plants, could provide a valuable constraint on photosynthesis. Here we analyze airborne observations of COS and carbon dioxide concentrations during the growing season over North America with a three-dimensional atmospheric transport model. We successfully modeled the persistent vertical drawdown of atmospheric COS using the quantitative relation between COS and photosynthesis that has been measured in plant chamber experiments. Furthermore, this drawdown is driven by plant uptake rather than other continental and oceanic fluxes in the model. These results provide quantitative evidence that COS gradients in the continental growing season may have broad use as a measurement-based photosynthesis tracer.
2 Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA.
3 Science and Technology Corporation, Hampton, VA 23666, USA.
4 Department of Environmental Engineering, Universidad Andrés Bello, Santiago, Chile.
5 Molina Center for Energy and the Environment, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
6 Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
7 NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA 23681, USA.
8 Biospheric Sciences Branch, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
9 Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA.
10 Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
11 Global Monitoring Division, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, CO 80305, USA.
12 Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80304, USA.
* Present address: College of Engineering, University of California, Merced, CA 95344, USA.
 To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ecampbell3{at}ucmerced.edu
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