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
 

Dynamic global vegetation models underestimate net CO2 flux mean and inter-annual variability in dryland ecosystems

Journal Article · · Environmental Research Letters
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [10];  [11];  [12];  [13];  [14];  [15];  [16];  [17]
  1. Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United States)
  2. United States Department of Agriculture, Tucson, AZ (United States)
  3. Univ. Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette (France)
  4. Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States)
  5. Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States)
  6. NOAA/ARL Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division, Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Oak Ridge Associated Univ., Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  7. NOAA/ARL Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division, Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  8. Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, Victoria (Canada)
  9. Science Partners, Paris (France)
  10. Univ. Paris-Saclay, Saint-Aubin (France)
  11. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, CO (United States)
  12. Max Planck Inst. for Meteorology, Hamburg (Germany)
  13. Max Planck Inst. for Meteorology, Hamburg (Germany); Ludwig-Maximilians-Univ. Munich (Germany)
  14. College of Life and Environmental Sciences, Exeter (United Kingdom)
  15. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  16. Max Planck Inst. for Biogeochemistry, Jena (Germany)
  17. Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Despite their sparse vegetation, dryland regions exert a huge influence over global biogeochemical cycles because they cover more than 40% of the world surface (Schimel 2010 Science 327 418–9). It is thought that drylands dominate the inter-annual variability (IAV) and long-term trend in the global carbon (C) cycle (Poulter et al 2014 Nature 509 600–3, Ahlstrom et al 2015 Science 348 895–9, Zhang et al 2018 Glob. Change Biol. 24 3954–68). Projections of the global land C sink therefore rely on accurate representation of dryland C cycle processes; however, the dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) used in future projections have rarely been evaluated against dryland C flux data. Here, we carried out an evaluation of 14 DGVMs (TRENDY v7) against net ecosystem exchange (NEE) data from 12 dryland flux sites in the southwestern US encompassing a range of ecosystem types (forests, shrub- and grasslands). We find that all the models underestimate both mean annual C uptake/release as well as the magnitude of NEE IAV, suggesting that improvements in representing dryland regions may improve global C cycle projections. Across all models, the sensitivity and timing of ecosystem C uptake to plant available moisture was at fault. Spring biases in gross primary production (GPP) dominate the underestimate of mean annual NEE, whereas models' lack of GPP response to water availability in both spring and summer monsoon are responsible for inability to capture NEE IAV. Errors in GPP moisture sensitivity at high elevation forested sites were more prominent during the spring, while errors at the low elevation shrub and grass-dominated sites were more important during the monsoon. We propose a range of hypotheses for why model GPP does not respond sufficiently to changing water availability that can serve as a guide for future dryland DGVM developments. Our analysis suggests that improvements in modeling C cycle processes across more than a quarter of the Earth's land surface could be achieved by addressing the moisture sensitivity of dryland C uptake.
Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1840149
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 23136484
Journal Information:
Environmental Research Letters, Journal Name: Environmental Research Letters Journal Issue: 9 Vol. 16; ISSN 1748-9326
Publisher:
IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (52)

Benchmarking the seasonal cycle of CO 2 fluxes simulated by terrestrial ecosystem models : Seasonal cycle of CO2 fluxes journal January 2015
The carbon balance pivot point of southwestern U.S. semiarid ecosystems: Insights from the 21st century drought journal December 2015
Improving the representation of hydrologic processes in Earth System Models: REPRESENTING HYDROLOGIC PROCESSES IN EARTH SYSTEM MODELS journal August 2015
Vegetation productivity responds to sub‐annual climate conditions across semiarid biomes journal May 2016
Biocrust contribution to ecosystem carbon fluxes varies along an elevational gradient journal June 2018
Modelling Seasonal and Inter-annual Variations in Carbon and Water Fluxes in an Arid-Zone Acacia Savanna Woodland, 1981–2012 journal January 2016
Comparing Simulated and Measured Values Using Mean Squared Deviation and its Components journal January 2000
Energy exchange and evapotranspiration over two temperate semi-arid grasslands in North America journal February 2012
Does day and night sampling reduce spurious correlation between canopy photosynthesis and ecosystem respiration? journal July 2015
Carbon sources and sinks of North America as affected by major drought events during the past 30 years journal October 2017
Climate controls over the net carbon uptake period and amplitude of net ecosystem production in temperate and boreal ecosystems journal September 2017
Modeling phenological controls on carbon dynamics in dryland sagebrush ecosystems journal August 2019
Water Availability Impacts on Evapotranspiration Partitioning journal February 2021
A new method to determine soil organic carbon equilibrium journal July 2011
Gap filling strategies for defensible annual sums of net ecosystem exchange journal March 2001
A model-data intercomparison of CO 2 exchange across North America: Results from the North American Carbon Program site synthesis journal January 2010
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
Differences Between OCO‐2 and GOME‐2 SIF Products From a Model‐Data Fusion Perspective journal October 2019
Contribution of semi-arid ecosystems to interannual variability of the global carbon cycle journal May 2014
Compensatory water effects link yearly global land CO2 sink changes to temperature journal January 2017
The increasing importance of atmospheric demand for ecosystem water and carbon fluxes journal September 2016
Precipitation thresholds regulate net carbon exchange at the continental scale journal September 2018
Sensitivity of atmospheric CO2 growth rate to observed changes in terrestrial water storage journal August 2018
Drought dominates the interannual variability in global terrestrial net primary production by controlling semi-arid ecosystems journal April 2016
CO 2 exchange and evapotranspiration across dryland ecosystems of southwestern North America journal April 2017
Dominant regions and drivers of the variability of the global land carbon sink across timescales journal May 2018
Rainfall manipulation experiments as simulated by terrestrial biosphere models: Where do we stand? journal March 2020
Differential responses of production and respiration to temperature and moisture drive the carbon balance across a climatic gradient in New Mexico: CARBON BALANCE ACROSS NM ELEVATIONAL GRADIENT journal December 2010
Temperature and precipitation controls over leaf- and ecosystem-level CO2 flux along a woody plant encroachment gradient journal December 2011
Terrestrial biosphere model performance for inter-annual variability of land-atmosphere CO2 exchange journal March 2012
Drylands in the Earth System journal January 2010
The dominant role of semi-arid ecosystems in the trend and variability of the land CO2 sink journal May 2015
Carbon and water fluxes from ponderosa pine forests disturbed by wildfire and thinning journal April 2010
Precipitation-driven carbon balance controls survivorship of desert biocrust mosses journal July 2012
Evaluation of continental carbon cycle simulations with North American flux tower observations journal November 2013
Competition in the Semidesert Grass-shrub Type as Influneced by Root Systems, Growth Habits, and Soil Moisture Extraction journal January 1969
A Concordance Correlation Coefficient to Evaluate Reproducibility journal March 1989
Some Observations from the Excavation of Honey Mesquite Root Systems journal May 1988
1982–2010 Trends of Light Use Efficiency and Inherent Water Use Efficiency in African vegetation: Sensitivity to Climate and Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations journal September 2014
Environmental drivers of drought deciduous phenology in the Community Land Model journal January 2015
Recent trends and drivers of regional sources and sinks of carbon dioxide journal January 2015
Using satellite data to improve the leaf phenology of a global terrestrial biosphere model journal January 2015
A model inter-comparison study to examine limiting factors in modelling Australian tropical savannas journal January 2016
Patterns and controls of inter-annual variability in the terrestrial carbon budget journal January 2017
Asymmetric responses of primary productivity to altered precipitation simulated by ecosystem models across three long-term grassland sites journal January 2018
Global Carbon Budget 2018 journal January 2018
Global Carbon Budget 2019 journal January 2019
Filling the gaps in meteorological continuous data measured at FLUXNET sites with ERA-Interim reanalysis journal January 2015
Anthropogenic land use estimates for the Holocene – HYDE 3.2 journal January 2017
Global evaluation of the nutrient-enabled version of the land surface model ORCHIDEE-CNP v1.2 (r5986) journal January 2021
Testing water fluxes and storage from two hydrology configurations within the ORCHIDEE land surface model across US semi-arid sites journal January 2020
Evaluation of continental carbon cycle simulations with North American flux tower observations collection January 2016

Similar Records

Optimizing Carbon Cycle Parameters Drastically Improves Terrestrial Biosphere Model Underestimates of Dryland Mean Net CO2 Flux and its Inter-Annual Variability
Journal Article · Tue Oct 05 20:00:00 EDT 2021 · Journal of Geophysical Research. Biogeosciences · OSTI ID:1978552
Interannual variability of ecosystem carbon exchange: From observation to prediction
Journal Article · Sat Sep 23 20:00:00 EDT 2017 · Global Ecology and Biogeography · OSTI ID:1476560
Contrasting Regional Carbon Cycle Responses to Seasonal Climate Anomalies Across the East-West Divide of Temperate North America
Journal Article · Fri Oct 16 20:00:00 EDT 2020 · Global Biogeochemical Cycles · OSTI ID:1764549

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
drylands
dynamic global vegetation models
global carbon cycle
inter-annual variability