First Investigation of the Relationship Between Solar-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence Observed by TanSat and Gross Primary Productivity

Reliable estimation of gross primary production (GPP) of terrestrial ecosystems is crucial in the global carbon cycle and ecosystem functioning studies. Solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) has emerged as an unprecedented proxy for terrestrial GPP estimation. TanSat SIF with a 2-km fine spatial resolution provides an excellent opportunity to investigate the relationships of satellite SIF and eddy covariance (EC) GPP at ecosystem or site scale, while has not been investigated. In this article, we investigated the relationship between TanSat SIF and EC GPP based on flux tower sites encompassing different biomes over the globe. TanSat SIF exhibited strong relationships with EC GPP at Fe and KI bands for instantaneous and daily timescales. The correlations between EC GPP and TanSat SIF (R-2 = 0.61) were much better than moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF)-corrected vegetation indices (VIs) (R-2 = 0.48-0.58). Further comparisons between SIF and GPP with absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (APAR) and two environmental factors (fTmin and fVPD) showed that SIF responded to APAR and was similarly affected by environmental factors as GPP. GPP derived from SIF (R-2 = 0.64) also performed slightly better than enhanced vegetation index and near-infrared reflectance of vegetation and even light use efficiency MODIS GPP algorithm (R-2 = 0.58-0.60). Therefore, our results demonstrated the feasibility of SIF on estimating GPP at sites or ecosystem levels; in addition, incorporating TanSat SIF with other satellite SIF products will open a new era for carbon cycling and ecosystem functioning studies.

Automated summary

This article investigates the relationship between TanSat SIF and EC GPP, finding strong correlations at different scales and better estimation performance of TanSat SIF. The response of SIF to absorbed photosynthetically active radiation and environmental factors is similar to GPP, demonstrating the potential for estimating GPP. Incorporating TanSat SIF with other satellite SIF products could open a new era for carbon cycling and ecosystem functioning studies.