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https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-922
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-922
09 Jun 2023
 | 09 Jun 2023

Spatial biases reduce the ability of earth system models to simulate soil heterotrophic respiration fluxes

Bertrand Guenet, Jérémie Orliac, Lauric Cécillon, Olivier Torres, Laura Sereni, Philip A. Martin, Pierre Barré, and Laurent Bopp

Abstract. Heterotrophic respiration (Rh) is, at a global scale, one of the largest CO2 fluxes between the earth’s surface and atmosphere and may increase in the future. Yet, the capacity of Earth System Models (ESMs) to reproduce this flux has never been evaluated, causing uncertainty in resulting CO2 flux estimates. In this study, we combine recently released observational data on Rh and ESM simulations to evaluate, for the first time, the ability of 13 ESMs to reproduce Rh. Only four of the 13 tested were able to reproduce the total Rh flux but spatial analysis underlined important bias compensation. We observed that mean annual precipitation was the most important driver explaining the difference between ESM simulations and observation-derived product of Rh with higher bias between ESM simulations and Rh products where precipitation was high. Based on our results, next-generation ESMs should focus on improving the response of Rh to soil moisture.

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Journal article(s) based on this preprint

02 Feb 2024
Spatial biases reduce the ability of Earth system models to simulate soil heterotrophic respiration fluxes
Bertrand Guenet, Jérémie Orliac, Lauric Cécillon, Olivier Torres, Laura Sereni, Philip A. Martin, Pierre Barré, and Laurent Bopp
Biogeosciences, 21, 657–669, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-657-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-657-2024, 2024
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The requested preprint has a corresponding peer-reviewed final revised paper. You are encouraged to refer to the final revised version.

Short summary
Heterotrophic respiration fluxes are a major flux between surfaces and the atmosphere, but Earth...
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