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Content archived on 2024-04-19

The global carbon cycle and its perturbation by man and climate II. Part B :terrestrial biosphere

Objective

The objectives of ESCOBA (European Study of Carbon in the Ocean,
Biosphere and Atmosphere) are to describe, quantify, model and
forecast the global carbon cycle, its response to the
anthropogenic perturbation and its interaction with the physical
climate system. Part B, Terrestrial biosphere: to model on a
global scale the interaction between the carbon pools on land
with the atmosphere and the physical climate system. To validate
the global models by means of atmospheric transport models and
ground experiments.


The first phase deals with the development, the improvement and
partial validation of vegetation and soil process models.
Different types of models (diagnostic, prognostic, parametric
and mechanistic) for estimating CO2 fluxes and
carbon balance (sources and sinks) are developed. Satellite
observations and
ground measurements are used to constraint and validate models.

These models have high time resolution (1 day to one
month), spatial resolutions of 0.5º x 0.5º or
1º x 1º, and
are integrated over periods ranging from a few days to several
years. High time resolution is needed to account for
non-linearities, large temporal variability and seasonality of
biospheric processes, and to distinguish between the different
contributions to the atmospheric CO2 concentration temporal
signal which is measured by the ground based network. In
addition, other models are developed to describe
vegetation dynamics (changes in ecosystem structure and
migration of ecosystems),
chemical erosion (CO2
consumption by global chemical erosion of the continents and
transfer of carbon from the biosphere-soil system to the ocean),
and
world energy strategies (effects of
future world energy consumption, in particular the consequences
of a substitution of fossil fuels by biomass fuels).

The second phase of the project is based on a collaborative work
with the "Part A: Atmosphere" and "Part C: Ocean" companion
projects : the results and models for atmosphere, ocean and
biosphere will be used to define the CO2 fluxes in each grid
point of an atmospheric transport model and to compare, as a
function of time, atmospheric CO2 concentration estimated in
different locations to actual concentration measurements made
during the 80's, with a particular emphasis on ENSO
periods. This simulation will be used to check the validity of
the models describing the different physical, chemical and
biological phenomenons involved in the global carbon cycle.

Call for proposal

Data not available

Coordinator

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
EU contribution
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Address
14 avenue Edouard Belin
31400 Toulouse
France

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Total cost
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Participants (7)