Probable Effects of CO2-induced Climatic Changes on the Net Primary Productivity of Terrestrial Natural Vegetation in Monsoon East Asia

Three climatic scenarios of doubled CO2 (GISS, GFDL, and UKMO) were used to simulate changes in the net primary productivity (NPP) of the natural vegetation of monsoon East Asia due to CO2-doubling. These three scenarios and baseline climate data were treated to provide gridded data consisting of data nets of 1°×1° meshes. The gridded data thus obtained were utilized together with the Chikugo model to assess NPP with baseline and CO2-doubling climates. The potential total net production (TNP0) of East Asia was climatically evaluated as 154×108t dry matter yr-1. The climatic changes induced by doubled CO2 concentrations could lead to an increase in TNP0 by 9% to 15%, depending on the climatic scenarios used. The estimated increase in TNP0 would be limited by the gap between the shift speed of climatic zones and the migration speed of vegetation formations.