photosynthesis calculations


Subject: photosynthesis calculations
From: Ranga Myneni (rmyneni@crsa.bu.edu)
Date: Wed Jul 02 1997 - 13:45:49 MDT


Dear CCM-LSM User:

I have a monthly-averaged field of vegetation canopy photosynthesis
(FPSN) in micro mols CO2 per square meter per second, at T31x15
resolution (48x48 matrix) for 1 model year (12 such matrices).

I would like to evaluate annual photosynthesis for the globe from
this data set (units: Giga Tons Carbon). So, I

(1) Evaluated the average size of the grid cell by latitude (km*km). The
    numbers I got are appended at the bottom of this email. Can someone
    please check if these numbers are correct?

(2) Using surfdat.t31x15.0696, the fraction of each pixel on land not
    covered by lakes and wetlands was estimated ("land pixel").

(3) The area of the "land pixel" covered by vegetation was then
    evaluated (basically excluding the bare areas here).

(4) The photosynthetic rate (FPSN) of each pixel was then multiplied
    by the area of the pixel (in square meters). This, I then summed and
    multiplied by (44.0/10**6) to obtain the global photosynthetic
    rate in grams Carbon per second.

(5) I then multiplied this quantity by the number of seconds in a month,
    and summed it over the year.

I am getting estimates of global photosynthesis well over 470 Giga Tons
of Carbon! Nooooooooo....

Can someone help? THANKS!

-ranga myneni

-------------------------
    T31x15 Resolution

 CCM LAT GRID CELL
  INDEX AREA (km*km)
    1.0 17786.436
    2.0 38618.434
    3.0 61657.043
    4.0 82551.648
    5.0 104251.828
    6.0 123638.258
    7.0 146742.266
    8.0 166945.391
    9.0 183080.344
   10.0 203013.562
   11.0 223097.047
   12.0 233510.953
   13.0 252889.047
   14.0 269640.344
   15.0 283298.781
   16.0 289961.750
   17.0 306747.812
   18.0 310479.312
   19.0 325074.094
   20.0 332272.688
   21.0 331511.656
   22.0 342349.906
   23.0 338603.125
   24.0 346720.000
   25.0 346694.969
   26.0 338583.656
   27.0 342316.531
   28.0 331485.219
   29.0 332229.562
   30.0 318848.000
   31.0 316588.531
   32.0 300880.688
   33.0 295668.875
   34.0 283208.344
   35.0 264485.562
   36.0 253001.734
   37.0 238305.391
   38.0 223014.953
   39.0 202932.875
   40.0 182978.781
   41.0 166843.828
   42.0 143294.609
   43.0 126853.562
   44.0 104118.258
   45.0 82393.047
   46.0 61470.609
   47.0 38393.043
   48.0 17380.174
----------------------



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