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Now showing 1 - 10 of 36
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    Terrestrial vegetation redistribution and carbon balance under climate change
    (London : BioMed Central, 2006) Lucht, Wolfgang; Schaphoff, Sibyll; Erbrecht, Tim; Heyder, Ursula; Cramer, Wolfgang
    Background Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs) compute the terrestrial carbon balance as well as the transient spatial distribution of vegetation. We study two scenarios of moderate and strong climate change (2.9 K and 5.3 K temperature increase over present) to investigate the spatial redistribution of major vegetation types and their carbon balance in the year 2100. Results The world's land vegetation will be more deciduous than at present, and contain about 125 billion tons of additional carbon. While a recession of the boreal forest is simulated in some areas, along with a general expansion to the north, we do not observe a reported collapse of the central Amazonian rain forest. Rather, a decrease of biomass and a change of vegetation type occurs in its northeastern part. The ability of the terrestrial biosphere to sequester carbon from the atmosphere declines strongly in the second half of the 21st century. Conclusion Climate change will cause widespread shifts in the distribution of major vegetation functional types on all continents by the year 2100.
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    Agents, Bayes, and Climatic Risks - a modular modelling approach
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2005) Haas, A.; Jaeger, C.
    When insurance firms, energy companies, governments, NGOs, and other agents strive to manage climatic risks, it is by no way clear what the aggregate outcome should and will be. As a framework for investigating this subject, we present the LAGOM model family. It is based on modules depicting learning social agents. For managing climate risks, our agents use second order probabilities and update them by means of a Bayesian mechanism while differing in priors and risk aversion. The interactions between these modules and the aggregate outcomes of their actions are implemented using further modules. The software system is implemented as a series of parallel processes using the CIAMn approach. It is possible to couple modules irrespective of the language they are written in, the operating system under which they are run, and the physical location of the machine
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    Impacts of large-scale climatic disturbances on the terrestrial carbon cycle
    (London : BioMed Central, 2006) Erbrecht, Tim; Lucht, Wolfgang
    Background: The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere steadily increases as a consequence of anthropogenic emissions but with large interannual variability caused by the terrestrial biosphere. These variations in the CO2 growth rate are caused by large-scale climate anomalies but the relative contributions of vegetation growth and soil decomposition is uncertain. We use a biogeochemical model of the terrestrial biosphere to differentiate the effects of temperature and precipitation on net primary production (NPP) and heterotrophic respiration (Rh) during the two largest anomalies in atmospheric CO2 increase during the last 25 years. One of these, the smallest atmospheric year-to-year increase (largest land carbon uptake) in that period, was caused by global cooling in 1992/93 after the Pinatubo volcanic eruption. The other, the largest atmospheric increase on record (largest land carbon release), was caused by the strong El Niño event of 1997/98. Results: We find that the LPJ model correctly simulates the magnitude of terrestrial modulation of atmospheric carbon anomalies for these two extreme disturbances. The response of soil respiration to changes in temperature and precipitation explains most of the modelled anomalous CO2 flux. Conclusion: Observed and modelled NEE anomalies are in good agreement, therefore we suggest that the temporal variability of heterotrophic respiration produced by our model is reasonably realistic. We therefore conclude that during the last 25 years the two largest disturbances of the global carbon cycle were strongly controlled by soil processes rather then the response of vegetation to these large-scale climatic events.
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    Towards global empirical upscaling of FLUXNET eddy covariance observations: Validation of a model tree ensemble approach using a biosphere model
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2009) Jung, M.; Reichstein, M.; Bondeau, A.
    Global, spatially and temporally explicit estimates of carbon and water fluxes derived from empirical up-scaling eddy covariance measurements would constitute a new and possibly powerful data stream to study the variability of the global terrestrial carbon and water cycle. This paper introduces and validates a machine learning approach dedicated to the upscaling of observations from the current global network of eddy covariance towers (FLUXNET). We present a new model TRee Induction ALgorithm (TRIAL) that performs hierarchical stratification of the data set into units where particular multiple regressions for a target variable hold. We propose an ensemble approach (Evolving tRees with RandOm gRowth, ERROR) where the base learning algorithm is perturbed in order to gain a diverse sequence of different model trees which evolves over time. We evaluate the efficiency of the model tree ensemble (MTE) approach using an artificial data set derived from the Lund-Potsdam-Jena managed Land (LPJmL) biosphere model. We aim at reproducing global monthly gross primary production as simulated by LPJmL from 1998–2005 using only locations and months where high quality FLUXNET data exist for the training of the model trees. The model trees are trained with the LPJmL land cover and meteorological input data, climate data, and the fraction of absorbed photosynthetic active radiation simulated by LPJmL. Given that we know the "true result" in the form of global LPJmL simulations we can effectively study the performance of the MTE upscaling and associated problems of extrapolation capacity. We show that MTE is able to explain 92% of the variability of the global LPJmL GPP simulations. The mean spatial pattern and the seasonal variability of GPP that constitute the largest sources of variance are very well reproduced (96% and 94% of variance explained respectively) while the monthly interannual anomalies which occupy much less variance are less well matched (41% of variance explained). We demonstrate the substantially improved accuracy of MTE over individual model trees in particular for the monthly anomalies and for situations of extrapolation. We estimate that roughly one fifth of the domain is subject to extrapolation while MTE is still able to reproduce 73% of the LPJmL GPP variability here. This paper presents for the first time a benchmark for a global FLUXNET upscaling approach that will be employed in future studies. Although the real world FLUXNET upscaling is more complicated than for a noise free and reduced complexity biosphere model as presented here, our results show that an empirical upscaling from the current FLUXNET network with MTE is feasible and able to extract global patterns of carbon flux variability.
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    How tight are the limits to land and water use? - Combined impacts of food demand and climate change
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2005) Lotze-Campen, H.; Lucht, W.; Müller, C.; Bondeau, A.; Smith, P.
    In the coming decades, world agricultural systems will face serious transitions. Population growth, income and lifestyle changes will lead to considerable increases in food demand. Moreover, a rising demand for renewable energy and biodiversity protection may restrict the area available for food production. On the other hand, global climate change will affect production conditions, for better or worse depending on regional conditions. In order to simulate these combined effects consistently and in a spatially explicit way, we have linked the Lund-Potsdam-Jena Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (LPJ) with a "Management model of Agricultural Production and its Impact on the Environment" (MAgPIE). LPJ represents the global biosphere with a spatial resolution of 0.5 degree. MAgPIE covers the most important agricultural crop and livestock production types. A prototype has been developed for one sample region. In the next stage this will be expanded to several economically relevant regions on a global scale, including international trade. The two models are coupled through a layer of productivity zones. In the paper we present the modelling approach, develop first joint scenarios and discuss selected results from the coupled modelling system.
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    Abschätzung der regionalen Kohlenstoffbilanz von mitteleuropäischen Wäldern unter dem Aspekt des Globalen Wandels : Abschlußbericht
    (Hannover : Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB), 2002) Suckow, Felicitas; Lasch, Petra; Klöcking, Beate; Hauf, Ylva; Badeck, Franz
    [no abstract available]
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    Modeling sensitivity study of the possible impact of snow and glaciers developing over Tibetan Plateau on Holocene African-Asian summer monsoon climate
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2009) Jin, L.; Peng, Y.; Chen, F.; Ganopolski, A.
    The impacts of various scenarios of a gradual snow and glaciers developing over the Tibetan Plateau on climate change in Afro-Asian monsoon region and other regions during the Holocene (9 kyr BP–0 kyr BP) are studied by using the Earth system model of intermediate complexity, CLIMBER-2. The simulations show that the imposed snow and glaciers over the Tibetan Plateau in the mid-Holocene induce global summer temperature decreases over most of Eurasia but in the Southern Asia temperature response is opposite. With the imposed snow and glaciers, summer precipitation decreases strongly in North Africa and South Asia as well as northeastern China, while it increases in Southeast Asia and the Mediterranean. For the whole period of Holocene (9 kyr BP–0 kyr BP), the response of vegetation cover to the imposed snow and glaciers cover over the Tibetan Plateau is not synchronous in South Asia and in North Africa, showing an earlier and a more rapid decrease in vegetation cover in North Africa from 9 kyr BP to 6 kyr BP while it has only minor influence on that in South Asia until 5 kyr BP. The precipitation decreases rapidly in North Africa and South Asia while it decreases slowly or unchanged during 6 kyr BP to 0 kyr BP with imposed snow and glacier cover over the Tibetan Plateau. The different scenarios of snow and glacier developing over the Tibetan Plateau would result in differences in variation of temperature, precipitation and vegetation cover in North Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia. The model results suggest that the development of snow and ice cover over Tibetan Plateau represents an additional important climate feedback, which amplify orbital forcing and produces a significant synergy with the positive vegetation feedback.
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    Advances and visions in large-scale hydrological modelling: Findings from the 11th Workshop on Large-Scale Hydrological Modelling
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2008) Döll, P.; Berkhoff, K.; Bormann, H.; Fohrer, N.; Gerten, D.; Hagemann, S.; Krol, M.
    Large-scale hydrological modelling has become increasingly wide-spread during the last decade. An annual workshop series on large-scale hydrological modelling has provided, since 1997, a forum to the German-speaking community for discussing recent developments and achievements in this research area. In this paper we present the findings from the 2007 workshop which focused on advances and visions in large-scale hydrological modelling. We identify the state of the art, difficulties and research perspectives with respect to the themes "sensitivity of model results", "integrated modelling" and "coupling of processes in hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere". Some achievements in large-scale hydrological modelling during the last ten years are presented together with a selection of remaining challenges for the future.