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Leveraging observed soil heterotrophic respiration fluxes as a novel constraint on global-scale models

Journal Article · · Global Change Biology (Online)
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15795· OSTI ID:1820959
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  1. BATTELLE (PACIFIC NW LAB)
  2. Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  3. Colorado State University
  4. University of Delaware
  5. University of Colorado at Boulder
+ Show Author Affiliations

Microbially-explicit models may improve understanding and projections of carbon dynamics in response to future climate change, but their fidelity in simulating global-scale soil heterotrophic respiration (RH), a stringent test for soil biogeochemical models, has never been evaluated. We used statistical global RH products, as well as 7,821 daily site-scale RH measurements, to evaluate the spatio-temporal performance of one first-order decay model (CASA-CNP) and two microbially-explicit biogeochemical models (CORPSE and MIMICS) that were forced by two different climate datasets. CORPSE and MIMICS did not provide any measurable performance improvement; instead, the models were highly sensitive to the meteorological input data used to drive them. Spatial RH variability was generally well simulated except in the northern middle latitudes (~50°N) and arid regions; models captured the seasonal variability of RH well, but showed more divergence in tropic and arctic regions. Our results demonstrate that the next generation of biogeochemical models shows promise, but also needs to be improved for realistic spatio-temporal variability of RH. Finally, we emphasize the importance of net primary production, soil moisture, and soil temperature inputs, and that jointly evaluating soil models for their spatial (global scale) and temporal (site scale) performance provides crucial benchmarks for improving biogeochemical models.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1820959
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-157824
Journal Information:
Global Change Biology (Online), Vol. 27, Issue 20; ISSN 1365-2486
Publisher:
Wiley
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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