Systematic underestimation of type-specific ecosystem process variability in the Community Land Model v5 over Europe
<p>Evapotranspiration (ET) and gross primary production (GPP) are critical fluxes contributing to the energy, water, and carbon exchanges between the atmosphere and the land surface. Land surface models such as the Community Land Model v5 (CLM5) quantify these fluxes, estimate the state of car...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Geoscientific Model Development |
| Online Access: | https://gmd.copernicus.org/articles/18/287/2025/gmd-18-287-2025.pdf |
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| Summary: | <p>Evapotranspiration (ET) and gross primary production (GPP) are critical fluxes contributing to the energy, water, and carbon exchanges between the atmosphere and the land surface. Land surface models such as the Community Land Model v5 (CLM5) quantify these fluxes, estimate the state of carbon budgets and water resources, and contribute to a better understanding of climate change's impact on ecosystems. Past studies have shown the ability of CLM5 to model ET and GPP magnitudes well but emphasized systematic underestimations and lower variability than in the observations.</p>
<p>Here, we evaluated CLM5's predictions of water and energy fluxes using observations from eddy covariance stations from the Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS), remote sensing, and reanalysis data sets. We assess simulated ET and GPP from the grid scale (CLM5<span class="inline-formula"><sub>grid</sub></span>) and the plant functional type (PFT) scale (CLM5<span class="inline-formula"><sub>PFT</sub></span>). CLM5<span class="inline-formula"><sub>PFT</sub></span> exhibited a low systematic error in simulating the ET at the ICOS sites (average bias of <span class="inline-formula">−4.68</span> %), indicating that PFT-specific ET closely matches the observations' magnitude. GPP was underestimated by CLM5<span class="inline-formula"><sub>PFT</sub></span>, especially in deciduous forests (bias of <span class="inline-formula">−43.76</span> %). The results showed an underestimation of the spatiotemporal variability in the simulated ET and GPP distribution moments across PFTs for both CLM setups compared to reanalysis data and remote-sensing products. These findings provide essential insights for improving land surface models, highlighting the need to enhance the CLM5's ability to capture the spatiotemporal variability in ET and GPP simulations across PFTs.</p> |
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| ISSN: | 1991-959X 1991-9603 |