Abstract ID: 273

The development of a second generation Global Dynamic Global Vegetation Model: new tools for constraining the terrestrial carbon-climate feedback.

Existing Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs) are skilled at simulating the contemporary carbon cycle, but differ significantly in their responses future climate and CO2 concentrations. To move past this situation, we must intensify our efforts to interface existing ecological data and experiments with model formulation and parameterisation. However this is not straightforward using ‘traditional’ DGVMs, as these typically require many parameters which are not easily linked to observations. In this seminar, I will discuss the development of a new DGVM based on the ‘Ecosystem Demography’ (ED) approach (Moorcroft et al. 2001) and the JULES land surface model. ED is a method of modelling vegetation dynamics which allows the simulation of a) vertical competition for light between plant types, b) heterogeneity of the land surface resulting from disturbance, c) succession following disturbance and ultimately d) the mechanistic representation of timescales determining the velocity of biome shifts. JULES is the land surface model used in the Hadley Centre family of Global Circulation Models. Our new DGVM is parameterised directly from observational data and as such represents a major shift in capacity for integration of ecological understanding into climate-relevant vegetation modelling. Several recently funded projects will develop the ED-JULES approach in more detail for tropical regions, Amazonia, and the Andes, opening up many opportunities to increase our confidence in model predictions. I will discuss the resons for the differences in output between the original JULES model and the new ED-JULES simulations in the context of the LBA Model Inter-comparison Project (LBA-MIP).

Session:  Carbon - The LBA Model-Intercomparison Project.

Presentation Type:  Poster