the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Plant phenology evaluation of CRESCENDO land surface models. Part II: Trough, peak, and amplitude of growing season
Abstract. Leaf area index is an important metric for characterising the structure of vegetation canopies and scaling up leaf and plant processes to assess their influence on regional and global climate. Earth observation estimates of leaf area index have increased in recent decades, providing a valuable resource for monitoring vegetation changes and evaluating their representation in land surface and earth system models. The study presented here uses satellite leaf area index products to quantify regional to global variations in the seasonal timing and value of the leaf area index trough, peak, and amplitude, and evaluate how well these variations are simulated by seven land surface models, which are the land components of state-of-the-art earth system models. Results show that the models simulate widespread delays, of up to three months, in the timing of leaf area index troughs and peaks compared to satellite products. These delays are most prominent across the Northern Hemisphere and support the findings of previous studies that have shown similar delays in the timing of spring leaf out simulated by some of these land surface models. The modelled seasonal amplitude differs by less than 1 m2/m2 compared to the satellite-derived amplitude across more than half of the vegetated land area. This study highlights the relevance of vegetation phenology as an indicator of climate, hydrology, soil, and plant interactions, and the need for further improvements in the modelling of phenology in land surface models in order to capture the correct seasonal cycles, and potentially also the long-term trends, of carbon, water and energy within global earth system models.
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Status: final response (author comments only)
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-4114', Anonymous Referee #1, 02 Mar 2025
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Daniele Peano, 14 Apr 2025
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-4114', Anonymous Referee #2, 05 Mar 2025
Review of
Plant phenology evaluation of CRESCENDO land surface models. Part II: Trough, peak, and amplitude of growing season.
by Peano et al.
General comments:
This is an interesting paper comparing global leaf area index (LAI) simulations with satellite-derived LAI observations. Seven land surface models are considered along with 3 satellite LAI data sets. All products and observations are first projected onto the same 0.5 degree x 0.5 degree grid and monthly averages are considered. Maps of simulated and observed LAI peak, trough, and annual amplitude are presented. Mean monthly LAI time series show that the models tend to simulate LAI peaks later than the observations. The paper is reasonably well written, but the discussion section could be improved.
Recommendation: major revisions.
Particular comment:
- Phenology simulations may be affected by errors in the atmospheric forcing. What is the quality of the CRUNCEP atmospheric forcing database? Has it been evaluated in previous studies?
- I am concerned with the definition of "LAI trough". Unlike the LAI peak, low LAI values (e.g. in winter or during a drought) can persist for several months. Commonly used phenology indicators, in addition to peak time, are leaf onset and leaf offset. Why not use these more common indicators? Is LAI trough equivalent to leaf offset?
- The observed model LAI peak lags at mid and high latitudes may indicate a problem in the representation of temperature. Temperature is a key driver of leaf emergence in these regions. The temperature relevant to phenology is likely to be close to the land surface temperature resulting from the energy budget calculations. This is particularly true for the ISBA model, where phenology is driven by photosynthesis and leaf temperature. Is daytime leaf temperature underestimated in this model? In a number of ISBA papers (e.g. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-4861-2017) the LAI peak time is generally consistent with observations. What has changed in the ISBA settings? Is the surface temperature calculated in the same way as before?
- For all models, it should be stated how the temperature used in the phenology model is calculated and how reliable it is.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-4114-RC2 - AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Daniele Peano, 14 Apr 2025
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The manuscript Peano et al. compared results from seven land surface models (LSMs) to remote sensing estimated leaf area index (LAI) at global scale regarding the seasonal timing of LAI trough (lowest value) and peak (highest value) and amplitude (max. – min.). The results indicate that all studied LSMs tended to show delayed timing of LAI trough and peak, in particular for the Northern Hemisphere while the modeled amplitude is smaller than satellite estimates. While overall the work is pretty straightforward, I do have a few major comments.
Specific comments
L20: add relevant citations.
L40: maybe can expand to add a little more detail here.
L140: how the different domain resolution might influence model results? Also how coarse is the model resolution?
L168: multi-model ensemble mean