Predicted Land Carbon Dynamics Are Strongly Dependent on the Numerical Coupling of Nitrogen Mobilizing and Immobilizing Processes: A Demonstration with the E3SM Land Model
Abstract
Coupling carbon and nitrogen processes is critical for Earth system models to accurately predict future climate and land biogeochemistry feedbacks. However, it has not yet been analyzed how numerical methods that land biogeochemical models apply to couple soil mineral nitrogen mobilizing and immobilizing processes affect predicted ecosystem carbon and nitrogen cycling. These effects were investigated here by using the E3SM land model and an evaluation of three plausible and widely used numerical couplings: (1) the mineral nitrogen-based limitation scheme, (2) the net uptake–based limitation scheme, and (3) the proportional nitrogen flux–based limitation scheme. It was found that these three schemes resulted in large differences (with a range of 316 PgC) in predicted cumulative land–atmosphere carbon exchanges under the RCP4.5 atmospheric CO2 simulations. This large uncertainty is without accounting for the different representations of the many land biogeochemical processes, but is about 73% of the range (434 PgC) reported for CMIP5 RCP4.5 simulations. Furthermore, these results help explain the large uncertainty found in various model intercomparison experiments and suggest that more robust numerical implementations are needed to improve carbon–nutrient cycle coupling in terrestrial ecosystem models.
- Authors:
-
[1];
- Earth and Environmental Sciences Area, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1438962
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1477292
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Earth Interactions
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Earth Interactions Journal Volume: 22 Journal Issue: 11; Journal ID: ISSN 1087-3562
- Publisher:
- American Meteorological Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 58 GEOSCIENCES; Land surface; Numerical analysis/modeling; Ecological models; Land surface model; Biosphere–atmosphere interaction
Citation Formats
Tang, Jinyun, and Riley, William J. Predicted Land Carbon Dynamics Are Strongly Dependent on the Numerical Coupling of Nitrogen Mobilizing and Immobilizing Processes: A Demonstration with the E3SM Land Model. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.1175/EI-D-17-0023.1.
Tang, Jinyun, & Riley, William J. Predicted Land Carbon Dynamics Are Strongly Dependent on the Numerical Coupling of Nitrogen Mobilizing and Immobilizing Processes: A Demonstration with the E3SM Land Model. United States. https://doi.org/10.1175/EI-D-17-0023.1
Tang, Jinyun, and Riley, William J. Tue .
"Predicted Land Carbon Dynamics Are Strongly Dependent on the Numerical Coupling of Nitrogen Mobilizing and Immobilizing Processes: A Demonstration with the E3SM Land Model". United States. https://doi.org/10.1175/EI-D-17-0023.1.
@article{osti_1438962,
title = {Predicted Land Carbon Dynamics Are Strongly Dependent on the Numerical Coupling of Nitrogen Mobilizing and Immobilizing Processes: A Demonstration with the E3SM Land Model},
author = {Tang, Jinyun and Riley, William J.},
abstractNote = {Coupling carbon and nitrogen processes is critical for Earth system models to accurately predict future climate and land biogeochemistry feedbacks. However, it has not yet been analyzed how numerical methods that land biogeochemical models apply to couple soil mineral nitrogen mobilizing and immobilizing processes affect predicted ecosystem carbon and nitrogen cycling. These effects were investigated here by using the E3SM land model and an evaluation of three plausible and widely used numerical couplings: (1) the mineral nitrogen-based limitation scheme, (2) the net uptake–based limitation scheme, and (3) the proportional nitrogen flux–based limitation scheme. It was found that these three schemes resulted in large differences (with a range of 316 PgC) in predicted cumulative land–atmosphere carbon exchanges under the RCP4.5 atmospheric CO2 simulations. This large uncertainty is without accounting for the different representations of the many land biogeochemical processes, but is about 73% of the range (434 PgC) reported for CMIP5 RCP4.5 simulations. Furthermore, these results help explain the large uncertainty found in various model intercomparison experiments and suggest that more robust numerical implementations are needed to improve carbon–nutrient cycle coupling in terrestrial ecosystem models.},
doi = {10.1175/EI-D-17-0023.1},
journal = {Earth Interactions},
number = 11,
volume = 22,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2018},
month = {Tue May 01 00:00:00 EDT 2018}
}
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https://doi.org/10.1175/EI-D-17-0023.1
https://doi.org/10.1175/EI-D-17-0023.1
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Figure 1: A schematic illustration of how plant and microbial processes compete for different soil mineral nitrogen species. Pathway 1 (green arrow) is the only nitrogen mobilizing process. The red and blue lines indicate immobilizing processes. In competing for soil mineral nitrogen, a demand flux is first computed for eachmore »
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