Global positive gross primary productivity extremes and climate contributions during 1982–2016

Highlights: • Summer in the Northern Hemisphere is vital for the global positive GPP extremes. • Grasslands contributed the most to positive GPP extremes. • Sufficient precipitation would boost the global terrestrial ecosystem's carbon uptake to form positive GPP extremes. • Global warming will not be conducive to the carbon uptake of the terrestrial ecosystem. Gross primary production (GPP) quantifies the photosynthetic uptake of carbon by the terrestrial ecosystem. Positive GPP extremes represent the potential capacity of the terrestrial ecosystem to uptake carbon dioxide. Studying the positive GPP extreme is vital for the global carbon cycle and mitigation of global warming. With increasing climate extreme events, many kinds of research focus on studying negative GPP and the negative impact of climatic extremes on GPP. There is still a lack of research on positive GPP extremes and whether climatic extremes could be beneficial to global carbon uptake. In this study, we used daily Boreal Ecosystem Productivity Simulator (BEPS) to simulate GPP of the global terrestrial ecosystem during 1982–2016 and combined TRENDY models to detect positive GPP extremes and investigate the effects of climate extremes on GPP. We found the results of the TRENDY models have large differences in some areas of the globe, and the BEPS model driven by remote sensing data could be more suitable for simulating the long-term time series of global terrestrial GPP. Compared to other plant functional types, grasslands contributed the most to positive GPP extremes, accounting for approximately 41.6% (TRENDY) and 34.8% (BEPS) of the global positive GPP extremes. The probabilities of positive GPP extremes caused by positive precipitation extremes were significantly higher than those caused by temperature and radiation in most areas of the globe, indicating that sufficient precipitation (not a flood) would boost the carbon uptake ability of the global terrestrial ecosystem to form positive GPP extremes. On the contrary, the partial correlation coefficients between temperature and GPP were negative in most areas of globe, suggesting that global warming will not be conducive to carbon uptake of the terrestrial ecosystem. This study may provide new knowledge on the global positive GPP extremes.