Based on the physico-biophysical considerations, mathematical analysis and some approximate formu... more Based on the physico-biophysical considerations, mathematical analysis and some approximate formulations generally adopted in meteorology and ecology, an ecological dynamic model of grassland is developed. The model consists of three interactive variables, i.e. the biomass of living grass, the biomass of wilted grass, and the soil wetness. The major biophysical processes are represented in parameterization formulas, and the model parameters can be determined inversely by using the observational climatological and ecological data. Some major parameters are adjusted by this method to fit the data (although incomplete) in the Inner Mongolia grassland, and other secondary parameters are estimated through sensitivity studies. The model results are well agreed with reality, e.g., (i) the maintenance of grassland requires a minimum amount of annual precipitation (approximately 300 mm); (ii) there is a significant relationship between the annual precipitation and the biomass of living grass; and (iii) the overgrazing will eventually result in desertification. A specific emphasis is put on the shading effect of the wilted grass accumulated on the soil surface. It effectively reduces the soil surface temperature and the evaporation, hence benefits the maintenance of grassland and the reduction of water loss in the soil.
Arid and semiarid regions represent a large fraction of global land, but most of the existing dyn... more Arid and semiarid regions represent a large fraction of global land, but most of the existing dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) do not include shrubs or do not effectively distinguish shrubs from grasses, and hence cannot realistically reproduce the ecosystem formation and variability there. A shrub submodel is developed here for the Community Land Model-DGVM (CLM-DGVM), and the major revisions include (1) explicit consideration of shrubs' drought tolerance in the photosynthesis computation; (2) use of appropriate phenology type and morphology parameters for shrubs; (3) consistent treatment of fractional vegetation coverage; (4) development of tree/grass/ shrub hierarchy for light competition; and (5) improvement of the allocation scheme to avoid unrealistic behaviors. Preliminary global offline CLM-DGVM simulations for 400 years show that, with the shrub submodel, the simulated global distribution of temperate shrubs agrees with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. The simulated shrub coverage reaches its peak around annual precipitation (P ann) of 300 mm, the grass coverage reaches its peak over a broad range of P ann (from 400 to 1100 mm), and the tree coverage reaches its peak for P ann = 1500 mm or higher, all in good agreement with MODIS data.
Soil microbial respiration (Rh) is a large but uncertain component of the terrestrial carbon cycl... more Soil microbial respiration (Rh) is a large but uncertain component of the terrestrial carbon cycle. Carbon-climate feedbacks associated with changes to Rh are likely, but Rh parameterization in Earth System Models (ESMs) has not been rigorously evaluated largely due to a lack of appropriate measurements. Here we assess, for the first time, Rh estimates from eight ESMs and their environmental drivers across several biomes against a comprehensive soil respiration database (SRDB-V2). Climatic, vegetation, and edaphic factors exert strong controls on annual Rh in ESMs, but these simple controls are not as apparent in the observations. This raises questions regarding the robustness of ESM projections of Rh in response to future climate change. Since there are many more soil respiration (Rs) observations than Rh data, two 'reality checks' for ESMs are also created using the Rs data. Guidance is also provided on the Rh improvement in ESMs.
A dynamic global vegetation model (DGVM) coupled with a land surface model (LSM) is generally ini... more A dynamic global vegetation model (DGVM) coupled with a land surface model (LSM) is generally initialized using a spin-up process to derive a physically-consistent initial condition. Spin-up forcing, which is the atmospheric forcing used to drive the coupled model to equilibrium solutions in the spin-up process, varies across earlier studies. In the present study, the impact of the spin-up forcing in the initialization stage on the fractional coverages (FCs) of plant functional type (PFT) in the subsequent simulation stage are assessed in seven classic climate regions by a modified Community Land Model's Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (CLM-DGVM). Results show that the impact of spin-up forcing is considerable in all regions except the tropical rainforest climate region (TR) and the wet temperate climate region (WM). In the tropical monsoon climate region (TM), the TR and TM transition region (TR-TM), the dry temperate climate region (DM), the highland climate region (H), and the boreal forest climate region (BF), where FCs are affected by climate non-negligibly, the discrepancies in initial FCs, which represent long-term cumulative response of vegetation to different climate anomalies, are large. Moreover, the large discrepancies in initial FCs usually decay slowly because there are trees or shrubs in the five regions. The intrinsic growth timescales of FCs for tree PFTs and shrub PFTs are long, and the variation of FCs of tree PFTs or shrub PFTs can affect that of grass PFTs.
This paper investigates the hydrological interactions in the atmosphere-evegetation-soil system b... more This paper investigates the hydrological interactions in the atmosphere-evegetation-soil system by using the bucket model and several new simplified intermediately complex models. The results of mathematical analysis and numerical simulations show that these models, despite their simplicity, can very clearly reveal the essential features of the rather complex hydrological system of atmosphere-ecosystem-soil. For given atmospheric variables, these models clearly demonstrate multiple timescales, the "red shift" of response spectra, multi-equilibria and limit cycles, bifurcation, abrupt change, self-organization, recovery, "desertification", and chaos. Most of these agree with observations. Especially, the weakening of "shading effect" of living canopy and the wilted biomass might be a major mechanism leading to the desertification in a relatively short period due to overgrazing, and the desertification in a relatively long period or in climate of change might be due to both Charney's mechanism and the shading effect. These ideas could be validated with further numerical simulations. In the paper, some methods for improving the estimation of timescales in the soil water evolution responding to the forcing are also proposed.
The capability of an improved Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (DGVM) in reproducing the impact of... more The capability of an improved Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (DGVM) in reproducing the impact of climate on the terrestrial ecosystem is evaluated. The new model incorporates the Community Land Model-DGVM (CLM3.0-DGVM) with a submodel for temperate and boreal shrubs, as well as other revisions such as the "two-leaf" scheme for photosynthesis and the definition of fractional coverage of plant functional types (PFTs). Results show that the revised model may correctly reproduce the global distribution of temperate and boreal shrubs, and improves the model performance with more realistic distribution of different vegetation types. The revised model also correctly reproduces the zonal distributions of vegetation types. In reproducing the dependence of the vegetation distribution on climate conditions, the model shows that the dominant regions for trees, grasses, shrubs, and bare soil are clearly separated by a climate index derived from mean annual precipitation and temperature, in good agreement with the CLM4 surface data. The dominant plant functional type mapping to a two dimensional parameter space of mean annual temperature and precipitation also qualitatively agrees with the results from observations and theoretical ecology studies.
Abrupt transitions between large-scale grassland and desert in arid and semiarid regions have bee... more Abrupt transitions between large-scale grassland and desert in arid and semiarid regions have been observed in nature and reproduced by modeling studies. Observations also show the existence of nonuniform fine-scale vegetation patterns along the transition zone. This paper attempts to better understand these observations from two very different spatial scales. By explicitly introducing horizontal interaction terms into our previous dynamical grassland model, vegetation patterns with high diversities are found in the transition zone, and the system possesses an infinite number of equilibrium states in response to a given climatic forcing. The transition can be elucidated in two ways. In terms of the vegetation formations, the ecosystem undergoes the transition from uniform grassland to regular and irregular vegetation patterns, and then to pure desert as the moisture index (i.e., the ratio of precipitation over potential evaporation) decreases. In terms of biomass, the transition from grassland to desert goes through a narrow range of moisture index under which grassland is most fragile, as indicated by erratic vegetation patterns and large variation of average biomass. The existence of this range, however, has not been reported in previous modeling studies, and still needs to be validated using observational data.
Based on the physico-biophysical considerations, mathematical analysis and some approximate formu... more Based on the physico-biophysical considerations, mathematical analysis and some approximate formulations generally adopted in meteorology and ecology, an ecological dynamic model of grassland is developed. The model consists of three interactive variables, i.e. the biomass of living grass, the biomass of wilted grass, and the soil wetness. The major biophysical processes are represented in parameterization formulas, and the model parameters can be determined inversely by using the observational climatological and ecological data. Some major parameters are adjusted by this method to fit the data (although incomplete) in the Inner Mongolia grassland, and other secondary parameters are estimated through sensitivity studies. The model results are well agreed with reality, e.g., (i) the maintenance of grassland requires a minimum amount of annual precipitation (approximately 300 mm); (ii) there is a significant relationship between the annual precipitation and the biomass of living grass; and (iii) the overgrazing will eventually result in desertification. A specific emphasis is put on the shading effect of the wilted grass accumulated on the soil surface. It effectively reduces the soil surface temperature and the evaporation, hence benefits the maintenance of grassland and the reduction of water loss in the soil.
Arid and semiarid regions represent a large fraction of global land, but most of the existing dyn... more Arid and semiarid regions represent a large fraction of global land, but most of the existing dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) do not include shrubs or do not effectively distinguish shrubs from grasses, and hence cannot realistically reproduce the ecosystem formation and variability there. A shrub submodel is developed here for the Community Land Model-DGVM (CLM-DGVM), and the major revisions include (1) explicit consideration of shrubs' drought tolerance in the photosynthesis computation; (2) use of appropriate phenology type and morphology parameters for shrubs; (3) consistent treatment of fractional vegetation coverage; (4) development of tree/grass/ shrub hierarchy for light competition; and (5) improvement of the allocation scheme to avoid unrealistic behaviors. Preliminary global offline CLM-DGVM simulations for 400 years show that, with the shrub submodel, the simulated global distribution of temperate shrubs agrees with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. The simulated shrub coverage reaches its peak around annual precipitation (P ann) of 300 mm, the grass coverage reaches its peak over a broad range of P ann (from 400 to 1100 mm), and the tree coverage reaches its peak for P ann = 1500 mm or higher, all in good agreement with MODIS data.
Soil microbial respiration (Rh) is a large but uncertain component of the terrestrial carbon cycl... more Soil microbial respiration (Rh) is a large but uncertain component of the terrestrial carbon cycle. Carbon-climate feedbacks associated with changes to Rh are likely, but Rh parameterization in Earth System Models (ESMs) has not been rigorously evaluated largely due to a lack of appropriate measurements. Here we assess, for the first time, Rh estimates from eight ESMs and their environmental drivers across several biomes against a comprehensive soil respiration database (SRDB-V2). Climatic, vegetation, and edaphic factors exert strong controls on annual Rh in ESMs, but these simple controls are not as apparent in the observations. This raises questions regarding the robustness of ESM projections of Rh in response to future climate change. Since there are many more soil respiration (Rs) observations than Rh data, two 'reality checks' for ESMs are also created using the Rs data. Guidance is also provided on the Rh improvement in ESMs.
A dynamic global vegetation model (DGVM) coupled with a land surface model (LSM) is generally ini... more A dynamic global vegetation model (DGVM) coupled with a land surface model (LSM) is generally initialized using a spin-up process to derive a physically-consistent initial condition. Spin-up forcing, which is the atmospheric forcing used to drive the coupled model to equilibrium solutions in the spin-up process, varies across earlier studies. In the present study, the impact of the spin-up forcing in the initialization stage on the fractional coverages (FCs) of plant functional type (PFT) in the subsequent simulation stage are assessed in seven classic climate regions by a modified Community Land Model's Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (CLM-DGVM). Results show that the impact of spin-up forcing is considerable in all regions except the tropical rainforest climate region (TR) and the wet temperate climate region (WM). In the tropical monsoon climate region (TM), the TR and TM transition region (TR-TM), the dry temperate climate region (DM), the highland climate region (H), and the boreal forest climate region (BF), where FCs are affected by climate non-negligibly, the discrepancies in initial FCs, which represent long-term cumulative response of vegetation to different climate anomalies, are large. Moreover, the large discrepancies in initial FCs usually decay slowly because there are trees or shrubs in the five regions. The intrinsic growth timescales of FCs for tree PFTs and shrub PFTs are long, and the variation of FCs of tree PFTs or shrub PFTs can affect that of grass PFTs.
This paper investigates the hydrological interactions in the atmosphere-evegetation-soil system b... more This paper investigates the hydrological interactions in the atmosphere-evegetation-soil system by using the bucket model and several new simplified intermediately complex models. The results of mathematical analysis and numerical simulations show that these models, despite their simplicity, can very clearly reveal the essential features of the rather complex hydrological system of atmosphere-ecosystem-soil. For given atmospheric variables, these models clearly demonstrate multiple timescales, the "red shift" of response spectra, multi-equilibria and limit cycles, bifurcation, abrupt change, self-organization, recovery, "desertification", and chaos. Most of these agree with observations. Especially, the weakening of "shading effect" of living canopy and the wilted biomass might be a major mechanism leading to the desertification in a relatively short period due to overgrazing, and the desertification in a relatively long period or in climate of change might be due to both Charney's mechanism and the shading effect. These ideas could be validated with further numerical simulations. In the paper, some methods for improving the estimation of timescales in the soil water evolution responding to the forcing are also proposed.
The capability of an improved Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (DGVM) in reproducing the impact of... more The capability of an improved Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (DGVM) in reproducing the impact of climate on the terrestrial ecosystem is evaluated. The new model incorporates the Community Land Model-DGVM (CLM3.0-DGVM) with a submodel for temperate and boreal shrubs, as well as other revisions such as the "two-leaf" scheme for photosynthesis and the definition of fractional coverage of plant functional types (PFTs). Results show that the revised model may correctly reproduce the global distribution of temperate and boreal shrubs, and improves the model performance with more realistic distribution of different vegetation types. The revised model also correctly reproduces the zonal distributions of vegetation types. In reproducing the dependence of the vegetation distribution on climate conditions, the model shows that the dominant regions for trees, grasses, shrubs, and bare soil are clearly separated by a climate index derived from mean annual precipitation and temperature, in good agreement with the CLM4 surface data. The dominant plant functional type mapping to a two dimensional parameter space of mean annual temperature and precipitation also qualitatively agrees with the results from observations and theoretical ecology studies.
Abrupt transitions between large-scale grassland and desert in arid and semiarid regions have bee... more Abrupt transitions between large-scale grassland and desert in arid and semiarid regions have been observed in nature and reproduced by modeling studies. Observations also show the existence of nonuniform fine-scale vegetation patterns along the transition zone. This paper attempts to better understand these observations from two very different spatial scales. By explicitly introducing horizontal interaction terms into our previous dynamical grassland model, vegetation patterns with high diversities are found in the transition zone, and the system possesses an infinite number of equilibrium states in response to a given climatic forcing. The transition can be elucidated in two ways. In terms of the vegetation formations, the ecosystem undergoes the transition from uniform grassland to regular and irregular vegetation patterns, and then to pure desert as the moisture index (i.e., the ratio of precipitation over potential evaporation) decreases. In terms of biomass, the transition from grassland to desert goes through a narrow range of moisture index under which grassland is most fragile, as indicated by erratic vegetation patterns and large variation of average biomass. The existence of this range, however, has not been reported in previous modeling studies, and still needs to be validated using observational data.
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Papers by Xiaodong Zeng