McGill wetland model: evaluation of a peatland carbon simulator developed for global assessments

St-Hilaire, François; Wu, Jianghua; Roulet, Nigel T.; Frolking, S. E.; Lafleur, Peter M.; Humphreys, Elyn; Arora, Vivek K.

doi:10.5194/bg-7-3517-2010

Cited by 95 publications

(122 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Work is underway to introduce a new moss plant functional type in CLM_SPRUCE, and we will use observations being gathered from the S1-Bog to parameterize the influence of water content on Sphagnum photosynthesis, and to better understand the influence of moss on hydrological and biogeochemical conditions in peatland bogs. Previous efforts at synthesizing and modeling moss physiology and physical properties are informing our progress in this area (St-Hilaire et al, 2010;Turetsky et al, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The existence of hummock-hollow microtopography has important impacts on hydrological dynamics (Lindholm and Markkula, 1984;Verry et al, 2011b), nutrient availability (Chapin et al, 1979;Damman, 1978), plant species distribution and productivity (Andrus et al, 1983;Moore, 1989), and decomposition rates (Johnson and Damman, 1991). Many wetland ecosystem models drive biogeochemical simulations using observed water table depth as an input variable (St-Hilaire et al, 2010;Frolking et al, 2002;Hilbert et al, 2000). Even though such models include water table effects, the models have not simulated observed variation for hummock/hollow microtopography common to raised-dome bog peatlands.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Representing northern peatland microtopography and hydrology within the Community Land Model

et al. 2015

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Abstract. Predictive understanding of northern peatland hydrology is a necessary precursor to understanding the fate of massive carbon stores in these systems under the influence of present and future climate change. Current models have begun to address microtopographic controls on peatland hydrology, but none have included a prognostic calculation of peatland water table depth for a vegetated wetland, independent of prescribed regional water tables. We introduce here a new configuration of the Community Land Model (CLM) which includes a fully prognostic water table calculation for a vegetated peatland. Our structural and process changes to CLM focus on modifications needed to represent the hydrologic cycle of bogs environment with perched water tables, as well as distinct hydrologic dynamics and vegetation communities of the raised hummock and sunken hollow microtopography characteristic of peatland bogs. The modified model was parameterized and independently evaluated against observations from an ombrotrophic raised-dome bog in northern Minnesota (S1-Bog), the site for the Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Climatic and Environmental Change experiment (SPRUCE). Simulated water table levels compared well with site-level observations. The new model predicts hydrologic changes in response to planned warming at the SPRUCE site. At present, standing water is commonly observed in bog hollows after large rainfall events during the growing season, but simulations suggest a sharp decrease in water table levels due to increased evapotranspiration under the most extreme warming level, nearly eliminating the occurrence of standing water in the growing season. Simulated soil energy balance was strongly influenced by reduced winter snowpack under warming simulations, with the warming influence on soil temperature partly offset by the loss of insulating snowpack in early and late winter. The new model provides improved predictive capacity for seasonal hydrological dynamics in northern peatlands, and provides a useful foundation for investigation of northern peatland carbon exchange.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Representing northern peatland microtopography and hydrology within the Community Land Model

et al. 2015

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“…The moss photosynthesis and dark respiration are calculated using the Farquhar (1989) biochemical approach following the MWM (St-Hilaire et al, 2010) and CTEM (Melton and Arora, 2016), with modifications for integration with CLASS-CTEM and moss phenology. The leaf-level gross photosynthesis rate G 0,m (µmol CO 2 m −2 s −1 ) is obtained as the minimum of the transportation limited photosynthesis rates (J s ) and the first root of the quadratic solution of the light-limited rate (J e ) and the Rubisco limited rate (J c ).…”

Section: Primary Production Of Mossesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the other hand, several peatland models have been developed and evaluated for individual sites. For example, the McGill Wetland Model (MWM) simulates the C exchange in Degerö Stormyr and the Mer Bleue bog (St-Hilaire et al, 2010); the peatland version of the General Ecosystem Simulator -Model of Raw Humus, Moder and Mull (GUESS-ROMUL) simulates the variation of net ecosystem production (NEP) with water table position in a fen (Yurova et al, 2007); and the PEATBOG model simulates C and N cycles in peatlands, specifically the Mer Bleue bog ). These models have been shown to reproduce well the processes occurring in the peatlands that they were designed for.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating peatlands into the coupled Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS) v3.6 and the Canadian Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (CTEM) v2.0

Verseghy

Melton

2016

Geosci. Model Dev.

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Abstract. Peatlands, which contain large carbon stocks that must be accounted for in the global carbon budget, are poorly represented in many earth system models. We integrated peatlands into the coupled Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS) and the Canadian Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (CTEM), which together simulate the fluxes of water, energy, and CO 2 at the land surface-atmosphere boundary in the family of Canadian Earth system models (CanESMs). New components and algorithms were added to represent the unique features of peatlands, such as their characteristic ground floor vegetation (mosses), the slow decomposition of carbon in the water-logged soils and the interaction between the water, energy, and carbon cycles. This paper presents the modifications introduced into the CLASS-CTEM modelling framework together with site-level evaluations of the model performance for simulated water, energy and carbon fluxes at eight different peatland sites. The simulated daily gross primary production (GPP) and ecosystem respiration are well correlated with observations, with values of the Pearson correlation coefficient higher than 0.8 and 0.75 respectively. The simulated mean annual net ecosystem production at the eight test sites is 87 g C m −2 yr −1 , which is 22 g C m −2 yr −1 higher than the observed annual mean. The general peatland model compares well with other site-level and regional-level models for peatlands, and is able to represent bogs and fens under a range of climatic and geographical conditions.

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“…Thus, the water table determines the separation of soil into a methane producing and a methane oxidising zone. While most studies identify wetlands as net carbon sinks for today's climate conditions (Bohn et al, 2007;Gorham, 1991;Friborg et al, 2003), a number of studies concluded that some wetlands might turn into carbon sources in a warmer climate (St-Hilaire et al, 2010;Gorham, 1991) due to higher productivity of methane releasing microbes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and evaluation of a global dynamical wetlands extent scheme

Stacke

Hagemann

2012

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. In this study we present the development of the dynamical wetland extent scheme (DWES) and evaluate its skill to represent the global wetland distribution. The DWES is a simple, global scale hydrological scheme that solves the water balance of wetlands and estimates their extent dynamically. The extent depends on the balance of water flows in the wetlands and the slope distribution within the grid cells. In contrast to most models, the DWES is not directly calibrated against wetland extent observations. Instead, wetland affected river discharge data are used to optimise global parameters of the model. The DWES is not a complete hydrological model by itself but implemented into the Max Planck Institute -Hydrology Model (MPI-HM). However, it can be transferred into other models as well.For present climate, the model evaluation reveals a good agreement for the spatial distribution of simulated wetlands compared to different observations on the global scale. The best results are achieved for the Northern Hemisphere where not only the wetland distribution pattern but also their extent is simulated reasonably well by the DWES. However, the wetland fraction in the tropical parts of South America and Central Africa is strongly overestimated. The simulated extent dynamics correlate well with monthly inundation variations obtained from satellites for most locations. Also, the simulated river discharge is affected by wetlands resulting in a delay and mitigation of peak flows. Compared to simulations without wetlands, we find locally increased evaporation and decreased river flow into the oceans due to the implemented wetland processes.In summary, the evaluation demonstrates the DWES' ability to simulate the distribution of wetlands and their seasonal variations for most regions. Thus, the DWES can provide hydrological boundary conditions for wetland related studies.In future applications, the DWES may be implemented into an Earth system model to study feedbacks between wetlands and climate.

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McGill wetland model: evaluation of a peatland carbon simulator developed for global assessments

Cited by 95 publications

References 60 publications

Representing northern peatland microtopography and hydrology within the Community Land Model

Representing northern peatland microtopography and hydrology within the Community Land Model

Integrating peatlands into the coupled Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS) v3.6 and the Canadian Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (CTEM) v2.0

Development and evaluation of a global dynamical wetlands extent scheme

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