Alaskan regional-scale measurements show late season ecosystem carbonyl sulfide uptake decoupled from gross photosynthesis

Abstract Increasing atmospheric CO 2 seasonal cycle amplitudes in boreal regions have been attributed to climate-driven changes in land ecosystems, but terrestrial biosphere models (TBMs) are unable to replicate observations, leading to large uncertainties in future predictions of carbon cycle changes. Accurately partitioning net ecosystem exchange into its component fluxes—gross primary production (GPP) and respiration—is essential for understanding impacts of changing climate on the Arctic and boreal carbon balance, yet these component fluxes cannot be measured directly. Carbonyl sulfide (OCS) has been used to infer GPP at site to global scales, because its one-way uptake by plants is an analog for photosynthesis. However, expanding site-level process understanding to regional scales remains challenging. Here, we use atmospheric OCS mole fraction observations representative of Alaskan boreal forests to evaluate simulations of OCS fluxes in a state-of-the-science TBM. We use TBM-estimated OCS fluxes and surface influence functions on the order of 100–1000 km to simulate OCS mole fractions at the NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory’s CRV tower site in central Alaska. By comparing with atmospheric observations, we can evaluate the TBM over much larger scales than is possible using eddy covariance data while still providing valuable information about underlying mechanisms. Comparisons reveal a missing ecosystem sink corresponding to a concentration difference of 22.3 ± 9.1 ppt OCS for July–November relative to observed concentrations of 433 ± 26 ppt at CRV. Solely improving the temperature sensitivity of apparent mesophyll conductance reduces the July–November mismatch between modeled and observed OCS concentration data by ∼5.3 ± 2.7 ppt. Consideration of alternate land cover maps provides an additional ∼5.3 ± 3.0 ppt towards the mismatch. These results demonstrate a strong decoupling of OCS and GPP, especially after the end of the growing season. Our analyzes demonstrate the limitations of using OCS as a proxy for GPP and highlight potential missing processes that need to be incorporated into future OCS modeling efforts to maximize its potential as a photosynthetic tracer.