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A fifteen-year record of biotic metabolism in the Northern Hemisphere

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Abstract

THE health and productivity of the biosphere are essential to man's welfare. Several scientists have speculated that global productivity and/or biomass should be increasing because of such factors as plant fertilisation from industrially derived atmospheric CO2 enhancement1,2. Others have maintained that global primary production and biomass must be decreasing because of pollution effects, such as from acid rain, and forest cutting3,4. There are some (rather controversial) tree-ring data that may support this view5,6. If one or the other of these trends is true, there would be a shift in the absolute and relative rates of global photosynthesis, respiration and their ratio (the PR ratio). Earlier attempts to ascertain any such trends from long term changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration have been frustrated by difficulties in distinguishing changes in biospheric retention from changes in the uptake or discharge of other reservoirs, principally the sea and industrial sources7,8. We present here a new model for the examination of such trends that we believe avoids such problems by focusing on potential changes in yearly patterns of atmospheric CO2.

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Author notes

  1. DANIEL E. WARTENBERG

    Present address: Department of Oceanography, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 98105

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section of Ecology and Systematics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 14853

    CHARLES A. S. HALL

  2. The Ecosystems Center, Marine Biology Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, 02543

    CHARLES A. S. HALL

  3. Laboratory of Plasma Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 14853

    CARL A. EKDAHL

  4. Section of Ecology and Systematics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 14853

    DANIEL E. WARTENBERG

Authors
  1. CHARLES A. S. HALL
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  2. CARL A. EKDAHL
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  3. DANIEL E. WARTENBERG
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HALL, C., EKDAHL, C. & WARTENBERG, D. A fifteen-year record of biotic metabolism in the Northern Hemisphere. Nature 255, 136–138 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1038/255136a0

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