Land Management for Climate Change Mitigation and Geoengineering - Are Earth System Models up to the Challenge?

Abstract:

Many of the terrestrial models included in Earth system models simulate changes to the land surface from human activities. In the Community Land Model (CLM), for example, irrigation, nitrogen fertilization, soil tillage, wood harvesting, and numerous crop types are represented in addition to anthropogenic land-cover change (e.g., deforestation, reforestation, and afforestation). These land uses are included in the models because they have a strong influence on the hydrological cycle (irrigation), crop yield and greenhouse gas emissions (nitrogen fertilization, crop type), and carbon storage (wood harvesting, tillage). However, the representation of these processes in Earth system models is uncertain, as is the specification of transient changes from 1850 through the historical era and into the future. A more fundamental aspect of land surface models is the coupling of land and atmosphere through exchanges of energy, mass, and momentum. Here, too, anthropogenic activities can affect climate through land-cover change and land management. Eddy covariance flux tower analyses suggest that the land management effects are as significant as the land-cover change effects. These analyses pose a challenge to land surface models - How well do the models simulate the effects of land management (e.g., changes in leaf area index or community composition) on surface flux exchange with the atmosphere? Here I use the CLM and a new, advanced multilayer canopy flux model to illustrate challenges in model surface fluxes and the influence of land management on surface fluxes.