More accurate estimates of carbon sequestration over land produced during the CAMELS project will be invaluable to EU Member States working to meet their Kyoto emissions targets.
Carbon accounting for the Kyoto Protocol involves estimating not only emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), but also sinks, namely forests and other types of land use that absorb carbon from the atmosphere. The CAMELS project, funded in part by the Fifth Framework Programme, sought to reduce the uncertainty associated with carbon sink assessments. The task involved incorporating data from a variety of sources into a number of computer-based models simulating different aspects of the carbon cycle.
The input data included biomass maps derived from European forest inventories as well as remote measurements of the Fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (FAPAR), which indicate plant productivity. In addition, field measurements of CO2 fluxes between the atmosphere and plant canopy were collected from more than 100 sites across Europe outfitted with eddy covariance instrumentation.
The data was then fed to the Organising carbon and hydrology in dynamic ecosystems (ORCHIDEE) model to reproduce the effect of the growing season. The important biological aspects of carbon assimilation and release were treated with the Met Office surface exchange scheme (MOSES) model. Using climate data, atmospheric CO2 measurements and land use data, MOSES was capable of modelling carbon sources and sinks throughout Europe.
Finally, the results of the CAMELS research were incorporated into a Carbon cycle data assimilation system (CCDAS). Analysis of the findings revealed significant progress in reducing the uncertainty associated with a number of key parameters. Furthermore, looking at the past 20 years, the influence of the El Nino-southern oscillation phenomenon was clearly evident. In particular, El Nino events were associated with enhanced CO2 uptake in the northern hemisphere.
More information about CAMELS and the CCDAS can be found online at: http://www.camels.org.uk and http://www.ccdas.org respectively.
Country: ITALY
Information Source: Result from the EU funded EESD programme
Collaboration Sought: Information exchange/Training
