Atmospheric Feedbacks Reverse the Sensitivity of Modeled Photosynthesis to Stomatal Function

Abstract Stomata mediate fluxes of carbon and water between terrestrial plants and the atmosphere. These fluxes are governed by stomatal function and can be modulated in many Earth system models by an empirical parameter within the calculation of stomatal conductance, the stomatal slope . Intuitively, represents the marginal water cost of carbon, relating it to the emergent plant property of water use efficiency. Observations show that can range widely across and within plant types in varying environments, and this distribution of is not captured within Earth system models which represent each plant type with a single value. Here we examine how influences photosynthesis using coupled Earth system model simulations by perturbing to observed and percentiles for each plant type. We find that high reduces photosynthesis nearly everywhere, while low has regionally dependent responses. Under fixed atmospheric conditions, low increases photosynthesis in the Amazon and central North America but decreases photosynthesis in boreal Canada. These responses reverse when the atmosphere responds interactively due to spatially differing sensitivity to increases in temperature and vapor pressure deficit. Choice of also influences photosynthetic response to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide (), with lower and higher modifying total global response to elevated 2x preindustrial by +6.4% and −9.6%, respectively. Our work demonstrates that atmospheric feedbacks are critical for determining the photosynthetic response to assumptions and some regions are particularly sensitive to choice of .