Identification

Title

Evaluating the interplay between biophysical processes and leaf area changes in land surface models

Abstract

Land Surface Models (LSMs) are essential to reproduce biophysical processes modulated by vegetation and to predict the future evolution of the land-climate system. To assess the performance of an ensemble of LSMs (JSBACH, JULES, ORCHIDEE, CLM, and LPJ-GUESS) a consistent set of land surface energy fluxes and leaf area index (LAI) has been generated. Relationships of interannual variations of modeled surface fluxes and LAI changes have been analyzed at global scale across climatological gradients and compared with those obtained from satellite-based products. Model-specific strengths and deficiencies were diagnosed for tree and grass biomes. Results show that the responses of grasses are generally well represented in models with respect to the observed interplay between turbulent fluxes and LAI, increasing the confidence on how the LAI-dependent partition of net radiation into latent and sensible heat are simulated. On the contrary, modeled forest responses are characterized by systematic bias in the relation between the year-to-year variability in LAI and net radiation in cold and temperate climates, ultimately affecting the amount of absorbed radiation due to LAI-related effects on surface albedo. In addition, for tree biomes, the relationships between LAI and turbulent fluxes appear to contradict the experimental evidences. The dominance of the transpiration-driven over the observed albedo-driven effects might suggest that LSMs have the incorrect balance of these two processes. Such mismatches shed light on the limitations of our current understanding and process representation of the vegetation control on the surface energy balance and help to identify critical areas for model improvement.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7cn76p6

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2018-05-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact