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This page is for WP 6.1 Global changes in biophysical and biogeochemical processes - integrated analysis of impacts and feedbacks.

Leader: UNIVBRIS (Prentice). Participants: UREADMM (Wheeler/Slingo), PIK (Cramer), ULUND (Sykes), METO-HC (Betts), CNRS-IPSL (de Noblet-Ducoudre)

Information on the activity within the WP can be found below

The first section gives the 60 month overview followed by the 18 month objectives and tasks. The section is completed by a list of deliverables and milestones.

Disclaimer: Some of the the information on this page is taken from DoW vn1.4 any errors or inconsistencies with other documentation needs 
to be discussed with the RT coordinators and ultimately the IP management.

The work will produce, for the first time, fully integrated European- and global-scale assessments of the impacts of changes in CO2 and climate on vegetation structure, function and 
productivity, forest and arable crop productivity, terrestrial carbon cycling and freshwater supply and will also consider the potential for feedbacks from these changes to the atmosphere 
and climate. The work will have two main strands. The first strand will be based on offline simulation using historical climate observations, and externally provided climate change scenarios
for the future, to drive integrated models of terrestrial biosphere processes. The second strand will be based on online simulation (hindcasts and future projections), with the impacts 
incorporated into the ensemble of ESMs being constructed in RT1.

Tasks

Task 6.1.a Offline analysis will be performed using the computationally fast Lund-Potsdam-Jena (LPJ) model as the central "workhorse". LPJ is the most extensively tested among current dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs).

Task 6.1.b DGVMs developed specifically as ESM components (TRIFFID, Orchidée, JSBACH) will be run offline using the same protocols.

Task 6.1.c Climatically relevant ecosystem properties will be evaluated from the offline results, (building on current work in the CAMELS, CYCLOPES and RETRO projects). This allows identification of key regions and processes where biospheric feedbacks are likely to modify future climates

Task 6.1.d Online modelling will be performed. This will build on exploratory analyses of feedback processes performed in WP4.1, and will exploit the ensembles of ESM results to be provided by RT2A.

Task 6.1.e For the European scale a more detailed analysis will be performed, based on high-resolution model results from RT2B. In particular, a range of indicators of ecosystem "extreme events" (such as large reductions of productivity, or large increases in fire hazard, as currently being developed in ATEAM) will be analysed and presented in a range of formats, as developed for RT2B.

Task 6.1.f Simulations of vegetation structure, productivity, seasonal and annual carbon fluxes, and freshwater runoff will be compared among models (both online and offline simulations) and evaluated against benchmark datasets currently being used or developed in the ATEAM and CAMELS projects.

Task 6.1.g Task Model outputs will be supplied to RT7, where they will be used in the generation of land-use change scenarios. These scenarios in turn will modify the land-use input to the offline models. This recursive approach is already in use in ATEAM for the European scale - this WP extends the ATEAM approach to the global scale.

WP 6.1 deals with global-scale interactions of ecosystem processes (including managed ecosystems) and climate. At present, research on the impacts of climate change on ecosystem services (such as the provision of food, timber, and freshwater) has been largely separate from research on the feedbacks from changes in ecosystem processes to the climate itself. However, this second area of research has established the major importance of feedbacks. Changes in vegetation and soils, whether they are caused by land-use or by climate change, alter key exchanges - of energy, water, carbon dioxide and other trace gases - between the atmosphere and biosphere and further influence the climate.

State of the Art

The state of the art in modelling the impacts of climate change on ecosystem services in Europe is represented by ATEAM (FP5), which is producing "vulnerability maps" for crop production, forestry, biodiversity and freshwater supply, based on a range of scenarios and climate models (but without accounting for feedbacks). The main impacts model used by ATEAM is the Lund-Potsdam-Jena model (LPJ), which is a leading dynamic vegetation model under continuous development (currently co-ordinated by UNIVBRIS). Crops and forest management are represented for European applications. The state of the art in modelling biosphere-atmosphere feedbacks is represented by recent work at METO-HC and CNRS-IPSL. These two groups have pioneered the development of fully coupled, global models of the carbon cycle and climate and have established that the feedback from terrestrial carbon cycling to the rate of increase of atmospheric CO2 has the potential to amplify climate change over the next century, suggesting that it will be important to include biosphere processes in climate models generally. Work at METO-HC has also helped to quantify the important biophysical consequences of land use. ENSEMBLES will merge the best of these two research approaches, with a view to producing better-founded, assessments of the impacts of climate change on ecosystems processes at European and global scales, and better-founded projections of climate change taking into account the effects of land

Measurable outputs of WP6.1:

• Globally applicable offline representations of managed forests and crops (top 15-20 crop types).
• A comparative assessment of the "offline" and "online" crop models when driven by climatological data.

Proposed output by Task

Task 6.1.a: Offline analysis will be performed using the computationally fast Lund-Potsdam-Jena (LPJ) model as the central "workhorse". Task 6.1.a will deliver an assessment of the potential impacts of changes in climate and atmospheric CO2 concentration on ecosystem services at a global scale using the LPJ model, driven by ENSEMBLES simulations from RT2A.

Task 6.1.b: DGVMs developed specifically as ESM components (TRIFFID, Orchidée, JSBACH) will be run offline using the same protocols.

Task 6.1.c: Climatically relevant ecosystem properties will be evaluated from the offline results, (building on current work in the CAMELS, CYCLOPES and RETRO projects). This allows identification of key regions and processes where biospheric feedbacks are likely to modify future climates Tasks 6.1.b and 6.1.c will deliver parallel simulations performed with the TRIFFID and Orchidée models, and a comparison of the results with those from LPJ and with observational data sets developed by ATEAM and CAMELS (FP5).

Task 6.1.d: Online modelling will be performed. This will build on exploratory analyses of feedback processes performed in WP4.1, and will exploit the ensembles of ESM results to be provided by RT2A. Task 6.1.d will deliver integrated global analysis of biospheric impacts and feedbacks using the Hadley Centre and IPSL climate models with "online" ecosystem components (a selection of the main ensemble runs performed in RT2A).

Task 6.1.e: For the European scale a more detailed analysis will be performed based on high-resolution model results from RT2B. In particular, a range of indicators of ecosystem "extreme events" (such as large reductions of productivity, or large increases in fire hazard, as currently being developed in ATEAM) will be analysed and presented in a range of formats, as developed for RT2B. Task 6.1e will deliver an assessment of the potential impacts of changes in climate and atmospheric CO2 concentration on ecosystem services in Europe, using the ATEAM methodology but driven by ENSEMBLES simulations (regional models) from RT2B.

Task 6.1.f: Simulations of vegetation structure, productivity, seasonal and annual carbon fluxes, and freshwater runoff will be compared among models (both online and offline simulations) and evaluated against benchmark datasets currently being used or developed in the ATEAM and CAMELS projects. Task 6.1.g: Task Model outputs will be supplied to RT7, where they will be used in the generation of land-use change scenarios. These scenarios in turn will modify the land-use input to the offline models. This recursive approach is already in use in ATEAM for the European scale - this WP extends the ATEAM approach to the global scale. 

Activity for each deliverable and milestone will appear here with links to RT6 WPs

Notes: Deliverable Number 6.0 basic site up and running by month 3 ongoing improvements and expansion through course of ENSEMBLES

WP six monthly reports will appear here