Abstract
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH,
VOL. 116,
G00K08,
22 PP., 2011
doi:10.1029/2010JG001585
Simulating the impacts of disturbances on forest carbon cycling in North America: Processes, data, models, and challenges
- Disturbances have significant impacts on carbon cycling
- Modeling disturbances and their impacts on carbon is essential
- Reviewed the status of data, processes, modeling, and challenges
U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Center, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA
Joint Global Change Research Institute, DOE Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, College Park, Maryland, USA
Department of Geography, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho, USA
Departamento de Biología de la Conservación, Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada, Ensenada, Mexico
College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
Department of Geography, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Department of Geography, University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho, USA
College of Information, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China
Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA
Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, U.S. Geological Survey, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA
Complex Systems Research Center, Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, USA
Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Missoula, Montana, USA
College of Global Change and Earth System Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
The Ecosystems Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA
Department of Botany and Microbiology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA
National Aeronautics and Space Administration Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA
Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA
Forest disturbances greatly alter the carbon cycle at various spatial and temporal scales. It is critical to understand disturbance regimes and their impacts to better quantify regional and global carbon dynamics. This review of the status and major challenges in representing the impacts of disturbances in modeling the carbon dynamics across North America revealed some major advances and challenges. First, significant advances have been made in representation, scaling, and characterization of disturbances that should be included in regional modeling efforts. Second, there is a need to develop effective and comprehensive process-based procedures and algorithms to quantify the immediate and long-term impacts of disturbances on ecosystem succession, soils, microclimate, and cycles of carbon, water, and nutrients. Third, our capability to simulate the occurrences and severity of disturbances is very limited. Fourth, scaling issues have rarely been addressed in continental scale model applications. It is not fully understood which finer scale processes and properties need to be scaled to coarser spatial and temporal scales. Fifth, there are inadequate databases on disturbances at the continental scale to support the quantification of their effects on the carbon balance in North America. Finally, procedures are needed to quantify the uncertainty of model inputs, model parameters, and model structures, and thus to estimate their impacts on overall model uncertainty. Working together, the scientific community interested in disturbance and its impacts can identify the most uncertain issues surrounding the role of disturbance in the North American carbon budget and develop working hypotheses to reduce the uncertainty.
Received 20 October 2010; accepted 9 August 2011; published 8 November 2011.
Citation: (2011), Simulating the impacts of disturbances on forest carbon cycling in North America: Processes, data, models, and challenges, J. Geophys. Res., 116, G00K08, doi:10.1029/2010JG001585.
Cited By