Intercomparison of global scale ecological models and field data: EMDI III

The Ecosystem Model-Data Intercomparison (EMDI) program of the Task Force on Global Analysis, Interpretation, and Modelling (GAIM) is facilitating interactions between international modeling and data synthesis teams, beyond what any individual team can reasonably propose or fund. The third EMDI Workshop will be held at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) April 21-24, 2002 funding support from NSF and from NCEAS. The Workshop will focus on the development of a new understanding of the nature and geographic variations in the carbon cycle, based on two earlier Workshops in which model inter-comparisons and model-data comparisons have been carried out. These issues are central to GAIM and have important synergies with the agendas of several other IGBP Core Projects such as GCTE and BAHC, the Carbon Joint Project Activities, and also international programs such as FLUXNET.

The Workshop will focus on spatial analyses of regional and global ecosystem model results with observed annual Net Primary Productivity (NPP),seasonal NPP, and time-series of carbon fluxes from FluxNet flux tower observations. Further analyses of model results and the (IGBP-DIS/GAIM) Global Primary Production Data Initiative (GPPDI) data sets will be made. FLUXNET data, which includes meteorology for evaluating spatially derived climate, carbon pools and component fluxes at a subset of sites, will be added, which will allow for rigorous tests of certain types and components of models. The comparisons of model outputs with field measurements will help to establish the level of confidence that we have in the processes and mechanisms that underlie the modeled carbon cycle dynamics. The Workshop will also increase the ongoing collaboration between scientists developing models and those conducting field measurements.

In the first two Workshops participation of approximately 20 models has been established, model-model inter-comparisons have been made using new methods developed by the Workshops, and initial comparisons of the model results with GPPDI data have been made. In the third Workshop we will (1) update the model outputs with new runs using any advances made by the modelers, (2) include additional observational data sets (e.g., FLUXNET) in the model-data inter-comparisons and report the findings in multi-authored paper(s), and (3) break new ground by initiating a synthesis of model results to make an agreed, single best estimate of global primary production at 0.5 degree resolution.

For more information, contact: Kathy A. Hibbard phone: (603) 862-4255 IGBP International Carbon Cycle Project fax: (603) 862-2124 Climate Change Research Center email: kathyh@eos.sr.unh.edu University of New Hampshire Durham, NH 03824