A comparison of plot‐based satellite and Earth system model estimates of tropical forest net primary production

Cleveland, Cory C.; Taylor, Phillip; Chadwick, Kristi; Dahlin, Kyla M.; Doughty, Christopher E.; Malhi, Yadvinder; Smith, William K.; Sullivan, Benjamin W.; Wieder, William R.; Townsend, Alan R.

doi:10.1002/2014gb005022

Cited by 66 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 139 publications

(317 reference statements)

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“…The field studies to date in tropical forests have addressed only some of the forest attributes and processes involved in C cycling. As also discussed by Cleveland et al (2015), considerable uncertainty is introduced when model structure and results are compared to C cycle estimates that are only partially based on field observations (henceforth termed "hybrid estimates"). Figure 2 is from an example study comparing such hybrid estimates to results from C cycle models.…”

Section: Types Of Model-data Interactionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As recently argued by Negrón-Juárez et al (2015), the most meaningful modeldata comparisons will be those based as closely as possible on the actual field measurements (i.e., surface-soil fine-root production and NEE in the examples above). Because the current field techniques all have clear limitations (Clark et al, 2001a;Cleveland et al, 2015), such observation benchmarks also need to be explicitly associated with the specific method used. If a superior method emerges, those benchmarks would need updating.…”

Section: Direct Field Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given these uncertainties, it will be important to maintain the actual field data (e.g., diameter and taxonomy of all stems) in a publically accessible archive, so that users could apply alternative allometries or estimation methods in the future. For testing models against field observations of tropicalforest biomass (see Cleveland et al, 2015), a separate important issue is the within-forest spatial heterogeneity of EAB. For example, within a 10 ha area of French Guianan forest where EAB averaged 301 Mg ha −1 (NOU-GP in Table 3) the range of the estimates for individual hectares was 230-416 Mg ha −1 (Chave et al, 2001).…”

Section: Live Aboveground Biomassmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As is the case in all other forest types (Clark et al, 2001a), the field studies in tropical forests have been restricted to a subset of NPP components ( Table 7). Those that remain unquantified could sum to a substantial fraction of total NPP (see also Clark et al, 2001a, b;Litton and Giardina, 2008;Cleveland et al, 2015). For the models, the sum of the NPP components assessed in the field provides a lower bound for total NPP.…”

Section: Total Net Primary Productivity (Total Npp)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reviews and syntheses: Field data to benchmark the carbon cycle models for tropical forests

et al. 2017

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Abstract. For more accurate projections of both the global carbon (C) cycle and the changing climate, a critical current need is to improve the representation of tropical forests in Earth system models. Tropical forests exchange more C, energy, and water with the atmosphere than any other class of land ecosystems. Further, tropical-forest C cycling is likely responding to the rapid global warming, intensifying water stress, and increasing atmospheric CO 2 levels. Projections of the future C balance of the tropics vary widely among global models. A current effort of the modeling community, the IL-AMB (International Land Model Benchmarking) project, is to compile robust observations that can be used to improve the accuracy and realism of the land models for all major biomes. Our goal with this paper is to identify field observations of tropical-forest ecosystem C stocks and fluxes, and of their long-term trends and climatic and CO 2 sensitivities, that can serve this effort. We propose criteria for reference-level field data from this biome and present a set of documented examples from old-growth lowland tropical forests. We offer these as a starting point towards the goal of a regularly updated consensus set of benchmark field observations of C cycling in tropical forests.

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Section: Types Of Model-data Interactionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Direct Field Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Live Aboveground Biomassmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Total Net Primary Productivity (Total Npp)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reviews and syntheses: Field data to benchmark the carbon cycle models for tropical forests

et al. 2017

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“…to calculate the NPP (Gray et al, 2014;Huang et al, 2007;Monfreda et al, 2008;Prince et al, 2001), which neglected the temporal evolution for crop-specific factors such as HI and root-to-shoot ratio (Lorenz et al, 2010;Sinclair, 1998). Remote sensing using satellites is a powerful tool for estimating global terrestrial NPP (Cleveland et al, 2015;Field et al, 1995;Nemani et al, 2003;Parazoo et al, 2014;Zhao and Running, 2010), yet croplands are coincident with natural vegetation, making it difficult to differentiate the two using remote sensing (Defries et al, 2000;Monfreda et al, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating global cropland production from 1961 to 2010

et al. 2017

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Abstract. Global cropland net primary production (NPP) has tripled over the last 50 years, contributing 17-45 % to the increase in global atmospheric CO 2 seasonal amplitude. Although many regional-scale comparisons have been made between statistical data and modeling results, long-term national comparisons across global croplands are scarce due to the lack of detailed spatiotemporal management data. Here, we conducted a simulation study of global cropland NPP from 1961 to 2010 using a process-based model called Vegetation-Global Atmosphere-Soil (VEGAS) and compared the results with Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) statistical data on both continental and country scales. According to the FAO data, the global cropland NPP was 1.3, 1.8, 2.2, 2.6, 3.0, and 3.6 PgC yr −1 in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, respectively. The VEGAS model captured these major trends on global and continental scales. The NPP increased most notably in the US Midwest, western Europe, and the North China Plain and increased modestly in Africa and Oceania. However, significant biases remained in some regions such as Africa and Oceania, especially in temporal evolution. This finding is not surprising as VEGAS is the first global carbon cycle model with full parameterization representing the Green Revolution. To improve model performance for different major regions, we modified the default values of management intensity associated with the agricultural Green Revolution differences across various regions to better match the FAO statistical data at the continental level and for selected countries. Across all the selected countries, the updated results reduced the RMSE from 19.0 to 10.5 TgC yr −1 (∼ 45 % decrease). The results suggest that these regional differences in model parameterization are due to differences in socioeconomic development. To better explain the past changes and predict the future trends, it is important to calibrate key parameters on regional scales and develop data sets for land management history.

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Source and sink carbon dynamics and carbon allocation in the Amazon basin

Doughty

Metcalfe

Girardin

et al. 2015

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

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Changes to the carbon cycle in tropical forests could affect global climate, but predicting such changes has been previously limited by lack of field-based data. Here we show seasonal cycles of the complete carbon cycle for 14, 1 ha intensive carbon cycling plots which we separate into three regions: humid lowland, highlands, and dry lowlands. Our data highlight three trends: (1) there is differing seasonality of total net primary productivity (NPP) with the highlands and dry lowlands peaking in the dry season and the humid lowland sites peaking in the wet season, (2) seasonal reductions in wood NPP are not driven by reductions in total NPP but by carbon during the dry season being preferentially allocated toward either roots or canopy NPP, and (3) there is a temporal decoupling between total photosynthesis and total carbon usage (plant carbon expenditure). This decoupling indicates the presence of nonstructural carbohydrates which may allow growth and carbon to be allocated when it is most ecologically beneficial rather than when it is most environmentally available.

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A comparison of plot‐based satellite and Earth system model estimates of tropical forest net primary production

Cited by 66 publications

References 139 publications

Reviews and syntheses: Field data to benchmark the carbon cycle models for tropical forests

Reviews and syntheses: Field data to benchmark the carbon cycle models for tropical forests

Estimating global cropland production from 1961 to 2010

Source and sink carbon dynamics and carbon allocation in the Amazon basin

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