Improving satellite-based modelling of gross primary production in deciduous broadleaf forests by accounting for seasonality in light use efficiency

Vegetation gross primary production (GPP), the photosynthetic yields by green plants per unit area per unit time, is a key metric of carbon flux in understanding the land–atmosphere interactions and terrestrial carbon cycles. Satellite-based light use efficiency (LUE) models are valuable methods to retrieve large-scale terrestrial GPP using remote sensing data. As studies have reported that maximum light use efficiency, a key parameter that is often assumed to be constant in the LUE models, there is a need to explore the effects of LUE seasonality on GPP simulation and ways for correction. This study proposes a method based on leaf area index to account for LUE seasonality and applies it to four different light use efficiency models (i.e., the MOD17 algorithm, the vegetation photosynthesis model, the radiation partitioning model, and the vegetation index model) for comparisons. Based on 59 site-years flux tower data from deciduous broadleaf forest sites in the United States, the results show that all models could simulate daily GPP time series well and explain more than 85.0% variance of tower-based GPP. There is, however, a tendency to overestimate GPP during the non-growing season but underestimate GPP during the growing season. By applying the correction function, GPP simulation using the LUE models improved in all experiments as indicated by increased correlation coefficients, the index of agreement and decreased root-mean-square errors. Among all models, the radiation partitioning model achieves the highest correlation coefficients between modelled and observed daily GPP likely because it considers the influences of direct and diffuse radiation partitioning on daily canopy photosynthesis. Our study indicates that satellite-based light use efficiency models could be successfully applied for deriving daily vegetation GPP and potentially producing daily routine satellite products, while considering the effects of LUE seasonality on canopy could help improve significantly the simulation accuracy of daily GPP in phenology.