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Ecosystem models

CARBO-Extreme makes use of ecosystem models from two general categories. Sectorial models (SUNDIAL, PASIM, BASFOR) simulate biogeochemical cycles and thus the state of a specific ecosystem type (cropland, grassland, forest). These models have a daily time step and have process representations that are specifically important for the respective ecosystem (e.g. the effect of tillage on productivity for croplands or the effect of selective logging on productivity for forests). In contrast, generic ecosystem models (JSBACH, ORCHIDEE, CLM, LPJmL) take into account a mixture of ecosystems within a larger grid cell, with different levels of complexity of interactions between these ecosystems. These models work as land-surface schemes of climate models and serve the atmospheric model with biogeochemical fluxes, surface albedo and roughness length, hence they usually resolve the diurnal cycle with typically half-hourly time step.

The table below is a first attempt to give information about the models and their individual excellence. All information is preliminary, suggestions should go to the site administrator.

In addition, you can see flowcharts of how SUNDIAL, LPJmL, CLM3.5, or DGVMs in general work. Many parts of these descriptions are also true for the other models, but not necessarily.

Comparison of generic models

The following table aims at comparing the most important features of the generic models. For example, LPJmL is the only model that runs with a daily temporal resolution but represents various crop PFTs with explicit crop phenology and represents a full competition. ORCHIDEE is the only land-surface scheme of a climate model that has a dynamic vegetation representation and it also represents forest stand structure and forest management. JSBACH has a logistic phenology model, and CLM represents carbon-nitrogen interactions.