Combined simple biosphere/carnegie-ames-stanford approach terrestrial carbon cycle model

Abstract

Biogeochemical models must include a broad variety of biological and physical processes to test our understanding of the terrestrial carbon cycle and to predict ecosystem biomass and carbon fluxes. We combine the photosynthesis and biophysical calculations in the Simple Biosphere model, Version 2.5 (SIB2.5) with the biogeochemistry from the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach (CASA) model to create SiBCASA, a hybrid capable of estimating terrestrial carbon fluxes and biomass from diurnal to decadal timescales. We add dynamic allocation of Gross Primary Productivity to the growth and maintenance of leaves, roots, and wood and explicit calculation of autotrophic respiration. We prescribe leaf biomass using Leaf Area Index (LAI) derived from remotely sensed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. Simulated carbon fluxes and biomass are consistent with observations at selected eddy covariance flux towers in the AmeriFlux network. Major sources of error include the steady state assumption for initial pool sizes, the input weather data, and biases in the LAI. Copyright 2008 by the American Geophysical Union.