ABSTRACT Gross primary production (GPP) is a first-order uncertainty in climate predictions. Large-scale CO2 observations can provide information about the carbon cycle, but are not directly

useful for GPP. Recently carbonyl sulfide (COS or OCS) has been proposed as a potential tracer for regional and global GPP. Here we present the first regional assessment of GPP using COS.

We focus on the North American growing season—a global hotspot for COS air-monitoring and GPP uncertainty. Regional variability in simulated vertical COS concentration gradients was driven

by variation in GPP rather than other modelled COS sources and sinks. Consequently we are able to show that growing season GPP in the Midwest USA significantly exceeds that of any other

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support SIMILAR CONTENT BEING VIEWED BY OTHERS AGRICULTURAL FERTILIZATION SIGNIFICANTLY ENHANCES AMPLITUDE OF LAND-ATMOSPHERE CO2 EXCHANGE Article Open access 18 February 2025 A DECLINE IN

ATMOSPHERIC CO2 LEVELS UNDER NEGATIVE EMISSIONS MAY ENHANCE CARBON RETENTION IN THE TERRESTRIAL BIOSPHERE Article Open access 19 November 2022 BIOME-SCALE TEMPERATURE SENSITIVITY OF

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references ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Terrestrial Ecosystem Sciences (DE-SC0011999). This research used resources

of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the US Department of Energy under Contract No.

DE-AC02-05CH11231. We acknowledge the assistance of C. Siso and others at NOAA responsible for aircraft sampling program management, sampling, analysis, and logistics. NOAA contributions to

this work were supported in part by the NOAA Climate Program Office’s AC4 Program. AUTHOR INFORMATION Author notes * Sarika Kulkarni Present address: Present address: California Air Resource

Board, Sacramento, California 95812, USA., AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Sierra Nevada Research Institute, University of California, Merced, Merced, California 95343, USA Timothy W. Hilton, 

Mary E. Whelan, Andrew Zumkehr & J. Elliott Campbell * Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution, Stanford, California 94305, USA Mary E. Whelan & Joseph A. Berry * Center

for Global and Regional Environmental Research, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA Sarika Kulkarni * Atmospheric Science Department, Colorado State University, Fort Collins,

Colorado 80523, USA Ian T. Baker * Global Monitoring Division, NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA Stephen A. Montzka, Colm Sweeney & Benjamin R. Miller

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Elliott Campbell View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS T.W.H., J.E.C. and J.A.B. designed research; T.W.H. performed research;

M.E.W., S.A.M., C.S. and B.R.M. provided observed data; I.T.B. provided model results; S.K. provided transport model code and meteorology drivers; A.Z. provided anthropogenic COS flux

inventories; T.W.H. and J.E.C. wrote the paper. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Timothy W. Hilton. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing financial

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Hilton, T., Whelan, M., Zumkehr, A. _et al._ Peak growing season gross uptake of carbon in North America is largest in the Midwest USA. _Nature Clim Change_ 7, 450–454 (2017).

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