Explicit Microbial Processes to Simulate Methane Production and Oxidation in Wetlands in the GFDL Land Model

Abstract:

Recent observational studies highlighted the need to include explicit treatment of the soil microbial processes into the next generation of Earth System Models (ESMs). These processes shape most soil biogeochemical cycles and control releases of the most potent greenhouses gases carbon dioxide and methane. Currently global ecosystem models usually parameterize methane production as a fraction of soil heterotrophic respiration. This lumps the pathways of several different functional groups of microbes into one production rate, possibly modified by a number of environmental factor multipliers. Methane oxidation is usually more explicitly modeled by Michaelis–Menten kinetics, but if the maximum rate, before environmental multipliers, is a constant parameter, this essentially implies a constant methanotrophic microbe population size. We present an explicit model for wetland soil microbial processes in an ESM context. We introduce a growth and decomposition model for four functional groups of microbes involved in methane production and oxidation, so microbial populations can grow when conditions are favorable and substrate is available. When soil conditions are anoxic, fermenting microbes transform available soil carbon into intermediate substrates, and two different kinds of methanogenic microbes live on their preferred substrates producing methane. Methane is transported through aerobic layers of the soil column, where methanotrophic microbes oxidize part of the methane, and the rest escapes to the atmosphere. We present initial simulations using the new model in the context of existing measurements of methane emissions and microbial populations at the site level, and discuss the implications of including these processes in an ESM. This explicit process model establishes a foundation for improving dynamic ecosystem-climate feedbacks in ESM simulations, and facilitates more detailed experimental verification of wetland biogeochemical processes.