Ecoclimates

Abstract

One of the greatest challenges to mankind is understanding the underlying principles of climate change. Over the last years, the role of forests in climate change has received increased attention. This is due to the observation that not only the atmosphere has a principal impact on vegetation growth but also that vegetation is contributing to local variations of weather resulting in diverse microclimates. The interconnection of plant ecosystems and weather is described and studied as ecoclimates. In this work we take steps towards simulating ecoclimates by modeling the feedback loops between vegetation, soil, and atmosphere. In contrast to existing methods that only describe the climate at a global scale, our model aims at simulating local variations of climate. Specifically, we model tree growth interactively in response to gradients of water, temperature and light. As a result, we are able to capture a range of ecoclimate phenomena that have not been modeled before, including geomorphic controls, forest edge effects, the Foehn effect and spatial vegetation patterning. To validate the plausibility of our method we conduct a comparative analysis to studies from ecology and climatology. Consequently, our method advances the state-of-the-art of generating highly realistic outdoor landscapes of vegetation.

Volcanic Skies: coupling explosive eruptions with atmospheric simulation to create consistent skyscapes

“…This enables complex feedback effects, such as flammagenitus clouds that arise from smoke and convective uplift and can subsequently lead to condensation and rain capable of extinguishing fires at other sources. EcoClimates [PMG*22] captures the feedback cycles between the atmosphere and biosphere that give rise to microclimates and vegetation patterning. This is achieved by using temperature and moisture maps as an exchange mechanism between soil, vegetation, and atmospheric sub‐models.…”

DeadWood: Including Disturbance and Decay in the Depiction of Digital Nature

“…Most previous methods focus separately on either plant modelling or ecosystem simulation to the detriment of both. A notable exception is the work of Makowski et al [2019] and its sequels [Palubicki et al 2022], which represent trees during both simulation and modelling as a collection of branch modules and also account for disturbance by fire [ Hädrich e t a l. 2 021] a nd w ind [ Pirk e t a l. 2014]. I n contrast, our approach supports larger-scale forests (with millions of trees), provides a separation between simulation and tree geometry instancing, and considers death and decay in detail (see Figure 1).…”

“…Unfortunately, this increase in fidelity comes at the expense of efficiency, with simulations usually running to minutes or hours, depending on the scale of the scene and the level of abstraction inherent in the simulation model. With regard to the latter, it is typical to use abstraction based on radial interactions [Alsweis and Deussen 2005;Deussen et al 1998;Kapp et al 2020], L-systems [Lane and Prusinkiewicz 2002], agents [Bradbury et al 2015;Ch'Ng 2013;Ecormier-Nocca et al 2021] or branch modules [Makowski et al 2019;Palubicki et al 2022].…”

“…However, this is cast in terms of the connection between the overlying ecosystem and the underlying terrain, specifically the conversion of dead plant matter into soil humus, rather than the visual evolution embodied in the decay process. The Sylviculture framework [Makowski et al 2019;Palubicki et al 2022] comes closest to matching our overarching goals in that it links ecosystem simulation to model realization through a branch module abstraction. In contrast, we achieve both greater abstraction during ecosystem simulation and more options during instantiation by using plant allometries and life history, which afford a less restrictive coupling between stages.…”

“…This separation between simulation and model realization is motivated primarily by memory and computational efficiency considerations. It stands in contrast to a branch-module strategy [Hädrich et al 2021;Makowski et al 2019;Palubicki et al 2022], which uses tree geometry during simulation, albeit using an abstraction of secondary branches and their subsidiaries that supports GPU instancing.…”