Coupling a terrestrial biogeochemical model to the common land model

Abstract

A terrestrial biogeochemical model (CASACNP) was coupled to a land surface model (the Common Land Model, CoLM) to simulate the dynamics of carbon substrate in soil and its limitation on soil respiration. The combined model, CoLM CASACNP, was able to predict long-term carbon sources and sinks that CoLM alone could not. The coupled model was tested using measurements of belowground respiration and surface fluxes from two forest ecosystems. The combined model simulated reasonably well the diurnal and seasonal variations of net ecosystem carbon exchange, as well as seasonal variation in the soil respiration rate of both the forest sites chosen for this study. However, the agreement between model simulations and actual measurements was poorer under dry conditions. The model should be tested against more measurements before being applied globally to investigate the feedbacks between the carbon cycle and climate change.