Skip to main content
OSTI.GOVU.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
 

Toward “optimal” integration of terrestrial biosphere models

Journal Article · · Geophysical Research Letters
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL064002· OSTI ID:1325465
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [3];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [6];  [8];  [9];  [7];  [6];  [10];  [3];  [11];  [6];  [5];  [12];  [6] more »;  [13];  [6];  [5];  [11];  [14];  [6];  [11];  [15] « less
  1. Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States). Center for Ecosystem Science and Society; Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States). School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability
  2. Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States). School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability; Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States). Dept. of Civil Engineering, Construction Management, and Environmental Engineering
  3. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), La Canada Flintridge, CA (United States). Jet Propulsion Lab.
  4. Carnegie Inst. of Science, Stanford, CA (United States). Dept. of Global Ecology
  5. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, Gif sur Yvette (France)
  6. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Environmental Sciences Division
  7. Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL (United States). Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences
  8. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States). Atmospheric Science and Global Change Div. (ASGC)
  9. National Inst. for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba (Japan)
  10. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China). Dept. of Hydraulic Engineering
  11. Auburn Univ., AL (United States). International Center for Climate and Global Change Research and School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences
  12. Montana State Univ. Bozeman MT (United States). Dept. of Ecology
  13. National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, CO (United States)
  14. NASA Ames Research Center (ARC), Moffett Field, Mountain View, CA (United States)
  15. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States). Dept. of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science
+ Show Author Affiliations
Multimodel ensembles (MME) are commonplace in Earth system modeling. Here we perform MME integration using a 10-member ensemble of terrestrial biosphere models (TBMs) from the Multiscale synthesis and Terrestrial Model Intercomparison Project (MsTMIP). We contrast optimal (skill based for present-day carbon cycling) versus naive (one model-one vote) integration. MsTMIP optimal and naive mean land sink strength estimates (-1.16 versus -1.15 Pg C per annum respectively) are statistically indistinguishable. This holds also for grid cell values and extends to gross uptake, biomass, and net ecosystem productivity. TBM skill is similarly indistinguishable. The added complexity of skill-based integration does not materially change MME values. This suggests that carbon metabolism has predictability limits and/or that all models and references are misspecified. Finally, resolving this issue requires addressing specific uncertainty types (initial conditions, structure, and references) and a change in model development paradigms currently dominant in the TBM community.
Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
LSCE; NASA; NSF; USDA; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER) (SC-23)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; AC05-00OR22725; SC0006706
OSTI ID:
1325465
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1221484
Journal Information:
Geophysical Research Letters, Journal Name: Geophysical Research Letters Journal Issue: 11 Vol. 42; ISSN 0094-8276
Publisher:
American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (97)

Sensitivity of global terrestrial gross primary production to hydrologic states simulated by the Community Land Model using two runoff parameterizations journal August 2014
Statistical problems in the probabilistic prediction of climate change: PROBABILISTIC PREDICTION OF CLIMATE CHANGE journal June 2012
Climate Change Projections: Characterizing Uncertainty Using Climate Models book November 2012
Environmental Fluid Mechanics: Applications to Weather Forecast and Climate Change book January 2014
Climate model errors, feedbacks and forcings: a comparison of perturbed physics and multi-model ensembles journal May 2010
Evaluation of regional climate model simulations versus gridded observed and regional reanalysis products using a combined weighting scheme journal August 2011
Reconciling Carbon-cycle Concepts, Terminology, and Methods journal November 2006
Century-Scale Responses of Ecosystem Carbon Storage and Flux to Multiple Environmental Changes in the Southern United States journal April 2012
Changing ecophysiological processes and carbon budget in East Asian ecosystems under near-future changes in climate: implications for long-term monitoring from a process-based model journal February 2010
The end of model democracy?: An editorial comment journal January 2010
Testing ensembles of climate change scenarios for “statistical significance” journal August 2012
Modeling and measuring the effects of disturbance history and climate on carbon and water budgets in evergreen needleleaf forests journal December 2002
North American Carbon Program (NACP) regional interim synthesis: Terrestrial biospheric model intercomparison journal May 2012
The origins of computer weather prediction and climate modeling journal March 2008
A dynamic global vegetation model for studies of the coupled atmosphere-biosphere system: DVGM FOR COUPLED CLIMATE STUDIES journal February 2005
Terrestrial mechanisms of interannual CO 2 variability : INTERANNUAL CO journal March 2005
Modeling the effects of two different land cover change data sets on the carbon stocks of plants and soils in concert with CO 2 and climate change : EFFECTS OF TWO DIFFERENT LAND COVER CHANGE DATA SETS journal May 2005
Effects of parameter uncertainties on the modeling of terrestrial biosphere dynamics: PARAMETER-BASED UNCERTAINTY OF A DGVM journal September 2005
Toward a model space and model independence metric journal January 2008
Benchmarking coupled climate-carbon models against long-term atmospheric CO 2 measurements : COUPLED CLIMATE-CARBON MODELS BENCHMARKS journal June 2010
Reliability of the CMIP3 ensemble: RELIABILITY OF CMIP3 journal January 2010
A model-data intercomparison of CO 2 exchange across North America: Results from the North American Carbon Program site synthesis journal January 2010
Parameter and prediction uncertainty in an optimized terrestrial carbon cycle model: Effects of constraining variables and data record length journal January 2011
Global patterns of land-atmosphere fluxes of carbon dioxide, latent heat, and sensible heat derived from eddy covariance, satellite, and meteorological observations journal January 2011
Climate model genealogy: CLIMATE MODEL GENEALOGY journal April 2011
On the observational assessment of climate model performance: OBSERVATIONAL ASSESSMENT journal December 2011
Carbon consequences of global hydrologic change, 1948–2009 journal January 2011
The need for “apples-to-apples” comparisons of carbon dioxide source and sink estimates journal October 2012
Temperature dependent climate projection deficiencies in CMIP5 models journal December 2012
A model-data comparison of gross primary productivity: Results from the North American Carbon Program site synthesis: A MODEL-DATA COMPARISON OF GPP journal July 2012
Vegetation/Ecosystem Modeling and Analysis Project:Comparing biogeography and biogeochemistry models in a continental‐scale study of terrestrial ecosystem responses to climate change and CO2 doubling journal December 1995
Robustness and uncertainties in the new CMIP5 climate model projections journal October 2012
Anthropogenic perturbation of the carbon fluxes from land to ocean journal June 2013
Climate change will affect global water availability through compounding changes in seasonal precipitation and evaporation journal June 2020
Asymmetrical response of California electricity demand to summer-time temperature variation journal July 2020
Comparing global models of terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP): overview and key results journal April 1999
Evaluation of ecosystem dynamics, plant geography and terrestrial carbon cycling in the LPJ dynamic global vegetation model journal February 2003
Irreducible imprecision in atmospheric and oceanic simulations journal May 2007
Re-evaluation of forest biomass carbon stocks and lessons from the world's most carbon-dense forests journal June 2009
The Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI–MIP): Project framework journal December 2013
Defining Uncertainty: A Conceptual Basis for Uncertainty Management in Model-Based Decision Support journal March 2003
Monitoring and estimating tropical forest carbon stocks: making REDD a reality journal October 2007
High sensitivity of future global warming to land carbon cycle processes journal April 2012
Sensitivity of inferred climate model skill to evaluation decisions: a case study using CMIP5 evapotranspiration journal May 2013
Uncertainty in weather and climate prediction journal December 2011
Model complexity versus ensemble size: allocating resources for climate prediction
  • Ferro, Christopher A. T.; Jupp, Tim E.; Lambert, F. Hugo
  • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 370, Issue 1962 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2011.0307
journal March 2012
Stochastic modelling and energy-efficient computing for weather and climate prediction
  • Palmer, Tim; Düben, Peter; McNamara, Hugh
  • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 372, Issue 2018 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2014.0118
journal June 2014
Traceable components of terrestrial carbon storage capacity in biogeochemical models journal March 2013
Evaluation of terrestrial carbon cycle models for their response to climate variability and to CO 2 trends journal April 2013
CO 2 emissions from land-use change affected more by nitrogen cycle, than by the choice of land-cover data journal April 2013
Climate-driven uncertainties in modeling terrestrial energy and water fluxes: a site-level to global-scale analysis journal March 2014
Climate-driven uncertainties in modeling terrestrial gross primary production: a site level to global-scale analysis journal March 2014
Predictability of the terrestrial carbon cycle journal December 2014
Markedly divergent estimates of Amazon forest carbon density from ground plots and satellites: Divergent forest carbon maps from plots & space journal April 2014
Aboveground Forest Biomass and the Global Carbon Balance journal June 2005
Terrestrial biosphere models need better representation of vegetation phenology: results from the North American Carbon Program Site Synthesis journal November 2011
The U.S. Air ForceWeather Agency’s mesoscale ensemble: scientific description and performance results journal January 2011
Contributions of carbon cycle uncertainty to future climate projection spread journal April 2009
Stochastic dynamic prediction journal December 1969
Evaluation of 11 terrestrial carbon-nitrogen cycle models against observations from two temperate Free-Air CO 2 Enrichment studies journal January 2014
Where does the carbon go? A model-data intercomparison of vegetation carbon allocation and turnover processes at two temperate forest free-air CO 2 enrichment sites journal May 2014
Terrestrial Gross Carbon Dioxide Uptake: Global Distribution and Covariation with Climate journal July 2010
Modeling the Terrestrial Biosphere journal October 2014
Interpretation of Seasonal Climate Forecast Using Brier Skill Score, The Florida State University Superensemble, and the AMIP-I Dataset journal March 2002
Calculation of Average, Uncertainty Range, and Reliability of Regional Climate Changes from AOGCM Simulations via the “Reliability Ensemble Averaging” (REA) Method journal May 2002
Uncertainties in Precipitation and Their Impacts on Runoff Estimates journal January 2004
The Potential to Narrow Uncertainty in Regional Climate Predictions journal August 2009
Challenges in Combining Projections from Multiple Climate Models journal May 2010
Climate Science and the Uncertainty Monster journal December 2011
Multimodel Estimate of the Global Terrestrial Water Balance: Setup and First Results journal October 2011
THE WCRP CMIP3 Multimodel Dataset: A New Era in Climate Change Research journal September 2007
An Overview of CMIP5 and the Experiment Design journal April 2012
Remote Sensing Evaluation of CLM4 GPP for the Period 2000–09 journal August 2012
Evaluating the Land and Ocean Components of the Global Carbon Cycle in the CMIP5 Earth System Models journal September 2013
Climate–Carbon Cycle Feedback Analysis: Results from the C 4 MIP Model Intercomparison journal July 2006
Using Bayesian Model Averaging to Calibrate Forecast Ensembles journal May 2005
Aspects of Effective Mesoscale, Short-Range Ensemble Forecasting journal June 2005
Model independence in multi-model ensemble prediction journal January 2010
Stochastic dynamic prediction journal January 1969
Contributions of carbon cycle uncertainty to future climate projection spread journal April 2009
A Review on Evaluation Methods of Climate Modeling journal September 2013
The end of model democracy? text January 2010
Sensitivity of inferred climate model skill to evaluation decisions: A case study using CMIP5 evapotranspiration text January 2013
Challenges in combining projections from multiple climate models text January 2010
Causes of variation in soil carbon simulations from CMIP5 Earth system models and comparison with observations journal January 2013
The impact of lateral carbon fluxes on the European carbon balance journal January 2008
A framework for benchmarking land models journal January 2012
Terminology as a key uncertainty in net land use and land cover change carbon flux estimates journal January 2014
The global carbon budget 1959–2011 journal January 2013
The global carbon budget 1959–2011 journal January 2012
Using multi-model averaging to improve the reliability of catchment scale nitrogen predictions journal January 2013
The North American Carbon Program Multi-Scale Synthesis and Terrestrial Model Intercomparison Project – Part 1: Overview and experimental design journal January 2013
Response of microbial decomposition to spin-up explains CMIP5 soil carbon range until 2100 journal January 2014
The North American Carbon Program Multi-scale Synthesis and Terrestrial Model Intercomparison Project – Part 2: Environmental driver data journal January 2014
The North American Carbon Program Multi-scale synthesis and Terrestrial Model Intercomparison Project – Part 1: Overview and experimental design journal January 2013
The North American Carbon Program Multi-scale Synthesis and Terrestrial Model Intercomparison Project – Part 2: Environmental driver data journal January 2013
Response of microbial decomposition to spin-up explains CMIP5 soil carbon range until 2100 journal January 2014

Cited By (23)

Uncertainty analysis of terrestrial net primary productivity and net biome productivity in China during 1901-2005 journal May 2016
Global and Brazilian Carbon Response to El Niño Modoki 2011-2010: BRAZILIAN CARBON BALANCE journal October 2017
Understanding the Land Carbon Cycle with Space Data: Current Status and Prospects journal February 2019
Vegetation Functional Properties Determine Uncertainty of Simulated Ecosystem Productivity: A Traceability Analysis in the East Asian Monsoon Region journal June 2019
No Proportional Increase of Terrestrial Gross Carbon Sequestration From the Greening Earth journal August 2019
Seasonal Characteristics of Model Uncertainties From Biogenic Fluxes, Transport, and Large‐Scale Boundary Inflow in Atmospheric CO 2 Simulations Over North America journal December 2019
The terrestrial biosphere as a net source of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere journal March 2016
Uncertainty in the response of terrestrial carbon sink to environmental drivers undermines carbon-climate feedback predictions journal July 2017
Carbon and Water Use Efficiencies: A Comparative Analysis of Ten Terrestrial Ecosystem Models under Changing Climate journal October 2019
Contributions of climate change, land use change and CO 2 to changes in the gross primary productivity of the Tibetan Plateau journal November 2019
Emergence of new hydrologic regimes of surface water resources in the conterminous United States under future warming journal October 2016
Photosynthetic productivity and its efficiencies in ISIMIP2a biome models: benchmarking for impact assessment studies journal July 2017
Evaluation of simulated soil carbon dynamics in Arctic-Boreal ecosystems journal February 2020
Divergence in land surface modeling: linking spread to structure journal October 2019
Improved simulation of carbon and water fluxes by assimilating multi-layer soil temperature and moisture into process-based biogeochemical model journal April 2019
Comprehensive Evaluation of Machine Learning Techniques for Estimating the Responses of Carbon Fluxes to Climatic Forces in Different Terrestrial Ecosystems journal February 2018
Reviews and syntheses: An empirical spatiotemporal description of the global surface-atmosphere carbon fluxes: Opportunities and data limitations text January 2017
Reviews and syntheses: An empirical spatiotemporal description of the global surface–atmosphere carbon fluxes: opportunities and data limitations journal January 2017
A Bayesian ensemble data assimilation to constrain model parameters and land-use carbon emissions journal January 2018
Reliability Ensemble Averaging of 21st century projections of terrestrial net primary productivity reduces global and regional uncertainties posted_content September 2017
Reliability ensemble averaging of 21st century projections of terrestrial net primary productivity reduces global and regional uncertainties journal January 2018
Terrestrial ecosystem process model Biome-BGCMuSo v4.0: summary of improvements and new modeling possibilities journal January 2016
A Bayesian ensemble data assimilation to constrain model parameters and land-use carbon emissions text January 2018

Similar Records

Toward “optimal” integration of terrestrial biosphere models
Journal Article · Wed Jun 10 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Geophysical Research Letters · OSTI ID:1221484
The North American Carbon Program Multi-scale synthesis and Terrestrial Model Intercomparison Project Part 1: Overview and experimental design
Journal Article · Mon Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 2012 · Geoscience Model Development · OSTI ID:1122662
Global patterns and controls of soil organic carbon dynamics as simulated by multiple terrestrial biosphere models. Current status and future directions
Journal Article · Fri Jun 05 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Global Biogeochemical Cycles · OSTI ID:1224507

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
carbon cycle
model integration
modeling