Representation of dissolved organic carbon in the JULES land surface model (vn4.4-JULES-DOCM)

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • Mahdi Nakhavali
  • Pierre Friedlingstein
  • Ronny Lauerwald
  • Jing Tang
  • Sarah Chadburn
  • Marta Camino-Serrano
  • Bertrand Guenet
  • Anna Harper
  • David Walmsley
  • Matthias Peichl
  • Bert Gielen

Current global models of the carbon (C) cycle consider only vertical gas exchanges between terrestrial or oceanic reservoirs and the atmosphere, thus not considering the lateral transport of carbon from the continents to the oceans. Therefore, those models implicitly consider all of the C which is not respired to the atmosphere to be stored on land and hence overestimate the land C sink capability. A model that represents the whole continuum from atmosphere to land and into the ocean would provide a better understanding of the Earth's C cycle and hence more reliable historical or future projections. A first and critical step in that direction is to include processes representing the production and export of dissolved organic carbon in soils. Here we present an original representation of dissolved organic C (DOC) processes in the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES-DOCM) that integrates a representation of DOC production in terrestrial ecosystems based on the incomplete decomposition of organic matter, DOC decomposition within the soil column, and DOC export to the river network via leaching. The model performance is evaluated in five specific sites for which observations of soil DOC concentration are available. Results show that the model is able to reproduce the DOC concentration and controlling processes, including leaching to the riverine system, which is fundamental for integrating terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Future work should include the fate of exported DOC in the river system as well as DIC and POC export from soil.

Original languageEnglish
JournalGeoscientific Model Development
Volume11
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)593-609
Number of pages17
ISSN1991-959X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 12.02.2018

Bibliographical note

Funding text
Acknowledgements. The research leading to these results received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 643052 (C-CASCADES project). We want to thank Altaf Arain, Tim Moore, and Gerd Glexiner for providing the DOC measurements. Ronny Lauerwald received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 703813 for the Marie Sklodowska-Curie European Individual Fellowship “C-Leak”. Jing Tang is financed by a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action Individual Fellowship (MABVOC: 707187) and supported by the Danish National Research Foundation (CENPERM DNRF100). Marta Camino-Serrano acknowledges funding from the European Research Council Synergy grant ERC-2013-SyG-610028 IMBALANCE-P.

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