Site-level synthesis of modeled and measured carbon, water, and energy fluxes across North America: Evaluation of model and measurement uncertainty
Deb
Agarwal, UC Berkeley / Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, daagarwal@lbl.gov
Brian
Amiro, U Manitoba, brian.amiro@umanitoba.ca
Ryan
Anderson, U Montana, ryan.anderson@ntsg.umt.edu
Altaf
M.
Arain, McMaster U, arainm@mcmaster.ca
Ian
Baker, Colorado State U, baker@atmos.colostate.edu
Dennis
Baldocchi, UC Berkeley, baldocchi@nature.berkeley.edu
Alan
Barr, Environment Canada, alan.barr@ec.gc.ca
Andy
Black, U British Columbia, andrew.black@ubc.ca
Tom
Boden, Oak Ridge National Lab, bodenta@ornl.gov
Paul
Bolstad, U Minnesota, pbolstad@umn.edu
Sean
Burns, National Center for Atmospheric Research, sean@ucar.edu
Steve
Campbell, Oak Ridge National Lab, campbellsl1@ornl.gov
Guangsheng
Chen, Auburn U, chengu1@auburn.edu
Jing
Chen, U Toronto, chenj@geog.utoronto.ca
Philippe
Ciais, LSCE, philippe.ciais@lsce.ipsl.fr
Bob
Cook, Oak Ridge National Lab, cookrb@ornl.gov
David
Cook, Argonne National Lab, drcook@anl.gov
Peter
Curtis, Ohio State U, curtis.7@osu.edu
Kenneth
J.
Davis, Penn State U, davis@meteo.psu.edu
Steve
Delgrosso, Colorado State U, delgro@warnercnr.colostate.edu
Michael
Dietze, U Illinois Urbana-Champaign, mdietze@life.uiuc.edu
Dimitre
Dimitrov, U of Alberta, dimitre@ualberta.ca
Danilo
Dragoni, Indiana U, ddragoni@indiana.edu
Howard
Epstein, U Virginia, hee2b@virginia.edu
Matthias
Falk, UC Davis, mfalk@cstars.ucdavis.edu
Marc
Fischer, Lawrence Berkeley National lab, mlfischer@lbl.gov
Larry
Flanagan, U Lethbridge, larry.flanagan@uleth.ca
Allen
Goldstein, UC Berkeley, ahg@nature.berkeley.edu
Michael
Goulden, UC Irvine, mgoulden@uci.edu
Robert
F.
Grant, U Alberta, robert.grant@afhe.ualberta.ca
Lianhong
Gu, Oak Ridge National Lab, lianhong-gu@ornl.gov
Niall
Hanan, Colorado State U, niall@nrel.colostate.edu
Iain
Hawthorne, U British Columbia, ihawth81@interchange.ubc.ca
Tim
Hilton, Pennsylvania State U, hilton@meteo.psu.edu
Forrest
Hoffman, Oak Ridge National Lab, forrest@climatemodeling.org
David
Hollinger, U New Hampshire, davidh@hypatia.unh.edu
Tara
Hudiburg, Oregon State U, tara.hudiburg@oregonstate.edu
Misa
Ishizawa, Environment Canada, misa.ishizawa@ec.gc.ca
Cesar
Izaurralde, Pacific Northwest National Lab, cesar.izaurralde@pnl.gov
Jeff
Nichols, Oak Ridge National Lab, n3j@ornl.gov
Robin
Kelly, Colorado State U, robinhk@nrel.colostate.edu
Tony
King, Oak Ridge National Lab, kingaw@ornl.gov
Christopher
Kucharik, U Wisconsin, kucharik@wisc.edu
Peter
Lafleur, Trent U, plafleur@trentu.ca
Beverly
Law, Oregon State U, bev.law@oregonstate.edu
Zhengpeng
Li, ARTS, zli@usgs.gov
Leo
Liu, USGS, sliu@usgs.gov
Mingliang
Liu, Auburn U, liuming@auburn.edu
Erandi
Lokupitiya, Colorado State U, erandi@atmos.colostate.edu
Yiqi
Luo, U Oklahoma, yluo@ou.edu
Hank
Margolis, Laval U, hank.margolis@sbf.ulaval.ca
Roser
Matamala, Argonne National Lab, matamala@anl.gov
Harry
McCaughey, Queen's U, mccaughe@post.queensu.ca
Tilden
Meyers, NOAA, tilden.meyers@noaa.gov
Russell
Monson, U Colorado, Boulder, monsonr@colorado.edu
Bill
Munger, Harvard U, jwmunger@seas.harvard.edu
Walt
Oechel, San Diego State U, oechel@sunstroke.sdsu.edu
Ram
Oren, Duke U, ramoren@duke.edu
William
Parton, Colorado State U, billp@nrel.colostate.edu
Elizabeth
Pattey, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, patteye@agr.gc.ca
Changhui
Peng, U Quebec, Montreal, peng.changhui@uqam.ca
Philippe
Peylin, LSCE, philippe.peylin@lsce.ipsl.fr
ShiLong
Piao, LSCE, shilong.piao@lsce.ipsl.fr
Mac
Post, Oak Ridge National Lab, wmp@ornl.gov
Ben
Poulter, PIK, ben.poulter@pik-potsdam.de
David
Price, Natural Resources Canada, dprice@nrcan.gc.ca
Brett
Raczka, Pennsylvania State U, bmr205@psu.edu
Dan
Ricciuto, Oak Ridge National Lab, ricciutodm@ornl.gov
Andrew
Richardson, U New Hampshire, andrew.richardson@unh.edu
William
J.
Riley, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, wjriley@lbl.gov
Michael
Ryan, Colorado State U, mryan@lamar.colostate.edu
Alok
Sahoo, Center for Research on Environment and Water, aksahoo2004@gmail.com
Nick
Saliendra, USFS, nsaliendra@fs.fed.us
Crystal
Schaaf, Boston U, schaaf@bu.edu
Kevin
Schaefer, National Snow and Ice Data Center, kevin.schaefer@nsidc.org
Andrew
Schuh, Colorado State U, aschuh@atmos.colostate.edu
Michael
Sprintsin, U Toronto, misprin@gmail.com
Paul
Stoy, U Edinborough, paul.stoy@ed.ac.uk
Peter
Thornton, Oak Ridge National Lab, thorntonpe@ornl.gov
(Presenting)
Hanqin
Tian, Auburn U, tianhan@auburn.edu
Christina
Tonitto, Cornell U, ct244@cornell.edu
Margaret
Torn, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, mstorn@lbl.gov
Catharine
van Ingen, Microsoft, vaningen@microsoft.com
Rodrigo
Vargas, UC Berkeley, rvargas@nature.berkeley.edu
Hans
Verbeeck, Ghent U, hans.verbeeck@ugent.be
Shashi
Verma, U Nebraska, Lincoln, sverma1@unl.edu
Nicolas
Viovy, LSCE, nicolas.viovy@lsce.ipsl.fr
Weile
Wang, NASA Ames, weile.wang@gmail.com
Ensheng
Weng, U Oklahoma, esweng@ou.edu
Christopher
Williams, Clark U, cwilliams@clarku.edu
Xiaofeng
Xu, Auburn U, xuxiaof@auburn.edu
Bai
Yang, Oak Rdge National Lab, yangb@ornl.gov
Wenping
Yuan, National Research Council, wyuan@usgs.gov
Tianshan
Zha, Environment Canada, tianshan.zha@ec.gc.ca
Xuhui
Zhou, U Oklahoma, zxuhui14@ou.edu
Long-term interactions and feedbacks between the terrestrial carbon cycle and the global climate system depend on the integrated dynamics of carbon stocks and fluxes at continental scales. The tremendous geographic and biological diversity of the North American continent results in a very challenging spatial scaling problem as we try to understand the integrated continental carbon cycle and carbon-climate dynamics. Large-scale modeling is an essential tool in generating integrated analyses of these dynamics, but there is an increasing call from the assessment and climate policy communities for a quantification of uncertainty associated with large-scale estimates of carbon and carbon-climate interactions. We are addressing that need by performing a detailed evaluation of modeled and observed carbon stocks and fluxes across a wide range of North American vegetation types and climate zones, focusing explicitly on the problem of uncertainty estimation in both observations and model results. Our synthesis team includes researchers representing 36 individual sites where eddy covariance and other meteorological measurements have been made for multiple years, supplemented with detailed biological measurements necessary for model parameterization and evaluation. The modeling team includes researchers representing 15 models of varying intents and complexity. Care has been taken to develop consistent datasets and a well-defined simulation protocol, to control as much as possible the external contributions to uncertainty. Here we present within-model and between-model uncertainty estimates, in comparison to the associated observational uncertainties. The analysis is designed to answer the question: “Are the modeled and observed carbon fluxes and stocks the same, within the bounds of uncertainty – and if not, why?” We identify and quantify the main contributions to modeled and measurement uncertainty. These include, for the models, input surface weather data and representation of disturbance history, and, for the measurements, assumptions related to partitioning of net carbon flux into photosynthesis and respiration components, and data filtering and gap-filling methodologies.