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Terrestrial ecosystem model performance in simulating productivity and its vulnerability to climate change in the northern permafrost region: Modeled Productivity in Permafrost Regions

Journal Article · · Journal of Geophysical Research. Biogeosciences
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JG003384· OSTI ID:1394452
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [10];  [11];  [12];  [13];  [7];  [6];  [14];  [7];  [15];  [12];  [16] more »;  [1];  [17];  [18];  [6];  [19];  [17];  [19];  [20];  [21];  [1];  [21];  [21];  [17];  [22] « less
  1. East China Normal Univ. (ECNU), Shanghai (China). Research Center for Global Change and Ecological Forecasting and Tiantong National Field Observation Station for Forest Ecosystem, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences
  2. Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK (United States). US Geological Survey, Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
  3. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
  4. Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter (United Kingdom)
  5. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Environmental Sciences Division
  6. Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States). Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  7. Centre National de Recherches Meteorologiques (CNRM), Toulouse (France)
  8. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  9. Univ. of Victoria, BC (Canada). School of Earth and Ocean Sciences
  10. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (LSCE), Gif-sur-Yvette (France); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Grenoble (France). Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Geophysique de l'Environnement (LGGE); Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble (France). Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Geophysique de l'Environnement (LGGE)
  11. Beijing Normal Univ., Beijing (China). College of Global Change and Earth System Science; Alfred Wegener Inst. Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Potsdam (Germany)
  12. Japan Agency for Marine-Earth, Yokohama (Japan). Dept. of Integrated Climate Change Projection Research
  13. Univ. of Copenhagen (Denmark). Center for Permafrost (CENPERM), Dept. of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management
  14. Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (LSCE), Gif-sur-Yvette (France)
  15. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Grenoble (France). Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Geophysique de l'Environnement (LGGE); Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble (France). Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Geophysique de l'Environnement (LGGE); Irstea, Villeurbanne (France)
  16. Univ. of Maine, Orono, ME (United States). School of Forest Resources
  17. Beijing Normal Univ., Beijing (China). College of Global Change and Earth System Science
  18. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Grenoble (France). Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Geophysique de l'Environnement (LGGE); Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble (France). Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Geophysique de l'Environnement (LGGE)
  19. Lund Univ. (Sweden). Dept. of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
  20. National Inst. of Polar Research, Tachikawa (Japan); Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokohama (Japan)
  21. Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States). Dept. of Microbiology and Plant Biology
  22. Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States). Dept. of Microbiology and Plant Biology; Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China). Dept. for Earth System Science
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Realistic projection of future climate-carbon (C) cycle feedbacks requires better understanding and an improved representation of the C cycle in permafrost regions in the current generation of Earth system models. Here we evaluated 10 terrestrial ecosystem models for their estimates of net primary productivity (NPP) and responses to historical climate change in permafrost regions in the Northern Hemisphere. In comparison with the satellite estimate from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS; 246 ± 6 g C m-2 yr-1), most models produced higher NPP (309 ± 12 g C m-2 yr-1) over the permafrost region during 2000–2009. By comparing the simulated gross primary productivity (GPP) with a flux tower-based database, we found that although mean GPP among the models was only overestimated by 10% over 1982–2009, there was a twofold discrepancy among models (380 to 800 g C m-2 yr-1), which mainly resulted from differences in simulated maximum monthly GPP (GPPmax). Most models overestimated C use efficiency (CUE) as compared to observations at both regional and site levels. Further analysis shows that model variability of GPP and CUE are nonlinearly correlated to variability in specific leaf area and the maximum rate of carboxylation by the enzyme Rubisco at 25°C (Vcmax_25), respectively. The models also varied in their sensitivities of NPP, GPP, and CUE to historical changes in climate and atmospheric CO2 concentration. In conclusion, these results indicate that model predictive ability of the C cycle in permafrost regions can be improved by better representation of the processes controlling CUE and GPPmax as well as their sensitivity to climate change.
Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; National Science Foundation (NSF); European Union (EU)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725; SC0008270; SC0014085
OSTI ID:
1394452
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1402146
OSTI ID: 1476459
OSTI ID: 23159807
Journal Information:
Journal of Geophysical Research. Biogeosciences, Journal Name: Journal of Geophysical Research. Biogeosciences Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 122; ISSN 2169-8953
Publisher:
American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Vegetation Functional Properties Determine Uncertainty of Simulated Ecosystem Productivity: A Traceability Analysis in the East Asian Monsoon Region journal June 2019
Space‐Based Observations for Understanding Changes in the Arctic‐Boreal Zone journal January 2020
Dependence of the evolution of carbon dynamics in the northern permafrost region on the trajectory of climate change journal March 2018
Vulnerability and resilience of the carbon exchange of a subarctic peatland to an extreme winter event journal June 2018
Ecosystem carbon dynamics differ between tundra shrub types in the western Canadian Arctic journal July 2018
Non-uniform seasonal warming regulates vegetation greening and atmospheric CO 2 amplification over northern lands journal November 2018
Joint structural and physiological control on the interannual variation in productivity in a temperate grassland: A data-model comparison journal May 2018
Divergent long‐term trends and interannual variation in ecosystem resource use efficiencies of a southern boreal old black spruce forest 1999–2017 journal May 2019
Evaluating the simulated mean soil carbon transit times by Earth system models using observations journal January 2019
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Variability in the sensitivity among model simulations of permafrost and carbon dynamics in the permafrost region between 1960 and 2009
Journal Article · Fri Jul 08 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Global Biogeochemical Cycles · OSTI ID:1324174

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
CO2 elevation
arctic
carbon use efficiency
climate warming
high latitudes
model intercomparison