Topic: Vegetation demographics in Earth system models: a status update and a strategy for acceleration

Speaker: Rosie Fisher

Affiliation: Center for International Climate Research (CICERO)

Time: 4:00-5:00 p.m., October 6, 2022 (Thursday)

Live Streaming at Official Weibo of the Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University Tencent Conference (ID: 546 737 0885; password: 20221005)

Introduction to the Lecture:

Emerging and urgent questions around the geopolitics of climate mitigation hinge on predictions of the carbon dynamics of the terrestrial biosphere. Modification of the land surface by humans can change the carbon sink strength, and also have profound impacts on climate. Land surface models (LSMs) integrate understanding of plant physiology, biogeochemistry, hydrology and land management with the atmospheric and oceanic elements of the Earth system, and as such are the only tools capable of estimating the full suite of impacts of terrestrial carbon management strategies. Carbon uptake by forests varies, however, as a function of their age and size dynamics, and so can only be properly captured by demographic models of forest structure. A new generation of LSMs is emerging that also simulates plant demographic processes, and progress on their deployment is urgently required to meet the scientific questions raised by 'net zero' climate mitigation strategies.

In this talk, Fisher will describe a recently completed census of the alternative strategies adopted by the numerous groups building vegetation demographic representations of the terrestrial biosphere. In addition, she will discuss the organization and philosophy of the Functionally Assembled Terrestrial Ecosystem Simulator (FATES) a collaborative, open-source demographic model active in three Earth system models, and discuss our strategy for managing the complexity of coupled model process interactions within the FATES framework.

Profile of the Speaker:

Rosie Fisher is a land surface modeler, ecophysiologist, climate scientist, ecologist and biogeochemist. Her primary research tools are land surface models, which are the terrestrial surface components of Earth System Models. She is heavily involved in the Community Land Model (CLM), which is the land surface mode of both the Community and Norwegian Earth System Models. She is currently the external co-chair of the CESM land model-working group, and is a co-leader of the Functionally Assembled Terrestrial Ecosystem Simulator (FATES). She worked at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), in Boulder, Colorado, for a decade and moved to Center for International Climate Research (CICERO) in 2021.