Evaluating the Dependence of Vegetation on Climate in an Improved Dynamic Global Vegetation Model

The capability of an improved Dynamic Global Vegetation Model （DGVM） in reproducing the impact of climate on the terrestrial ecosystem is evaluated. The new model incorporates the Community Land Model- DGVM （CLM3.0-DGVM） with a submodel for temperate and boreal shrubs, as well as other revisions such as the ＂two-leaf＂ scheme for photosynthesis and the definition of fractional coverage of plant functional types （PFTs）. Results show that the revised model may correctly reproduce the global distribution of temperate and boreal shrubs, and improves the model performance with more realistic distribution of di？erent vege- tation types. The revised model also correctly reproduces the zonal distributions of vegetation types. In reproducing the dependence of the vegetation distribution on climate conditions, the model shows that the dominant regions for trees, grasses, shrubs, and bare soil are clearly separated by a climate index derived from mean annual precipitation and temperature, in good agreement with the CLM4 surface data. The dominant plant functional type mapping to a two dimensional parameter space of mean annual temperature and precipitation also qualitatively agrees with the results from observations and theoretical ecology studies.

Two anomalous convective systems in the tropical western Pacific and their influences on the East Asian summer monsoon

根据经验正交函数(EOF)分解向外长波辐射资料,发现在热带西太平洋存在两个异常对流系统。除经典的菲律宾对流系统外(PC),在密克罗尼西亚群岛附近还存在另一个对流系统(MC)。MC是EOF分解的第一分量,解释的方差要大于PC。两个对流系统均受到热带海表温度异常的调制,其中PC与El Ni駉有关,而MC则与夏季中东太平洋海表温度异常有关。两个对流系统都能对东亚夏季风产生影响。一般而言,对流增强(减弱)时,西太平洋副高东退(西伸),强度减弱(增强)。PC减弱(增强)时,长江流域到日本的夏季风降水增加(减少)。与PC相比,MC对东亚大陆降水的影响较弱。此外,对流减弱的影响要大于对流增强的影响。

Development of the IAP Dynamic Global Vegetation Model

ABSTRACT The lAP Dynamic Global Vegetation Model （IAP-DGVM） has been developed to simulate the distribution and structure of global vegetation within the framework of Earth System Models. It incorporates our group＇s recent developments of major model components such as the shrub sub-model, establishment and competition parameterization schemes, and a process-based fire parameterization of intermediate complexity. The model has 12 plant functional types, including seven tree, two shrub, and three grass types, plus bare soil. Different PFTs are allowed to coexist within a grid cell, and their state variables are updated by various governing equations describing vegetation processes from fine-scale biogeophysics and biogeochemistry, to individual and population dynamics, to large-scale biogeography. Environmental disturbance due to fire not only affects regional vegetation competition, but also influences atmospheric chemistry and aerosol emissions. Simulations under observed atmospheric conditions showed that the model can correctly reproduce the global distribution of trees, shrubs, grasses, and bare soil. The simulated global dominant vegetation types reproduce the transition from forest to grassland （savanna） in the tropical region, and from forest to shrubland in the boreal region, but overestimate the region of temperate forest.

Simulating the Intraseasonal Variation of the East Asian Summer Monsoon by IAP AGCM4.0

ABSTRACT This study focuses on the intraseasonal variation of the East Asian summer monsoon （EASM） simulated by IAP AGCM 4.0, the fourth-generation atmospheric general circulation model recently developed at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. In general, the model simulates the intraseasonal evolution of the EASM and the related rain belt. Besides, the model also simulates the two northward jumps of the westem Pacific subtropical high （WPSH）, which are closely related to the convective activities in the warm pool region and Rossby wave activities in high latitudes. Nevertheless, some evident biases in the model were found to exist. Due to a stronger WPSH, the model fails to simulate the rain belt in southern China during May and June. Besides, the model simulates a later retreat of the EASM, which is attributed to the overestimated land-sea thermal contrast in August. In particular, the timing of the two northward jumps of the WPSH in the model is not coincident with the observation, with a later jump by two pentads for the first jump and an earlier jump by one pentad for the second, i.e., the interval between the two jumps is shorter than the observation. This bias is mainly ascribed to a shorter oscillating periodicity of convection in the tropical northwestern Pacific.

Improving Multi-model Ensemble Probabilistic Prediction of Yangtze River Valley Summer Rainfall

Seasonal prediction of summer rainfall over the Yangtze River valley（YRV） is valuable for agricultural and industrial production and freshwater resource management in China, but remains a major challenge. Earlier multi-model ensemble（MME） prediction schemes for summer rainfall over China focus on single-value prediction, which cannot provide the necessary uncertainty information, while commonly-used ensemble schemes for probability density function（PDF） prediction are not adapted to YRV summer rainfall prediction. In the present study, an MME PDF prediction scheme is proposed based on the ENSEMBLES hindcasts. It is similar to the earlier Bayesian ensemble prediction scheme, but with optimization of ensemble members and a revision of the variance modeling of the likelihood function. The optimized ensemble members are regressed YRV summer rainfall with factors selected from model outputs of synchronous 500-h Pa geopotential height as predictors. The revised variance modeling of the likelihood function is a simple linear regression with ensemble spread as the predictor. The cross-validation skill of 1960–2002 YRV summer rainfall prediction shows that the new scheme produces a skillful PDF prediction, and is much better-calibrated, sharper, and more accurate than the earlier Bayesian ensemble and raw ensemble.

Assimilating the along-track sea level anomaly into the regional ocean modeling system using the ensemble optimal interpolation

The ensemble optimal interpolation （EnOI） is applied to the regional ocean modeling system （ROMS） with the ability to assimilate the along-track sea level anomaly （TSLA）. This system is tested with an eddy-resolving system of the South China Sea （SCS）. Background errors are derived from a running seasonal ensemble to account for the seasonal variability within the SCS. A fifth-order localization function with a 250 km localization radius is chosen to reduce the negative effects of sampling errors. The data assimilation system is tested from January 2004 to December 2006. The results show that the root mean square deviation （RMSD） of the sea level anomaly decreased from 10.57 to 6.70 cm, which represents a 36.6% reduction of error. The data assimilation reduces error for temperature within the upper 800 m and for salinity within the upper 200 m, although error degrades slightly at deeper depths. Surface currents are in better agreement with trajectories of surface drifters after data assimilation. The variance of sea level improves significantly in terms of both the amplitude and position of the strong and weak variance regions after assimilating TSLA. Results with AGE error （AGE） perform better than no AGE error （NoAGE） when considering the improvements of the temperature and the salinity. Furthermore, reasons for the extremely strong variability in the northern SCS in high resolution models are investigated. The results demonstrate that the strong variability of sea level in the high resolution model is caused by an extremely strong Kuroshio intrusion. Therefore, it is demonstrated that it is necessary to assimilate the TSLA in order to better simulate the SCS with high resolution models.

Investigation of Uncertainties of Establishment Schemes in Dynamic Global Vegetation Models

In Dynamic Global Vegetation Models （DGVMs）, the establishment of woody vegetation refers to flowering, fertiliza- tion, seed production, germination, and the growth of tree seedlings. It determines not only the population densities but also other important ecosystem structural variables. In current DGVMs, establishments of woody plant functional types （PFTs） are assumed to be either the same in the same grid cell, or largely stochastic. We investigated the uncertainties in the competition of establishment among coexisting woody PFTs from three aspects： the dependence of PFT establishments on vegetation states; background establishment; and relative establishment potentials of different PFTs. Sensitivity experi- ments showed that the dependence of establishment rate on the fractional coverage of a PFT favored the dominant PFT by increasing its share in establishment. While a small background establishment rate had little impact on equilibrium states of the ecosystem, it did change the timescale required for the establishment of alien species in pre-existing forest due to their disadvantage in seed competition during the early stage of invasion. Meanwhile, establishment purely fiom background （the scheme commonly used in current DGVMs） led to inconsistent behavior in response to the change in PFT specification （e.g., number of PFTs and their specification）. Furthermore, the results also indicated that trade-off between irtdividual growth and reproduction/colonization has significant influences on the competition of establishment. Hence, further development of es- tablishment parameterization in DGVMs is essential in reducing the uncertainties in simulations of both ecosystem structures and successions.

火灾气溶胶对全球陆地生态系统生产力的影响

火灾是全球尺度上最主要的生态干扰形式及大气气溶胶的主要来源。我们基于耦合地球系统模式CESM1.2,给出全球首份考虑了云–气溶胶–气候相互作用的火气溶胶影响全球陆地生态系统总初级生产力(GPP)的量化分析报告。研究结果表明火气溶胶往往通过减少陆表气温,湿度,直接光合有效辐射减少植被区的GPP,全球影响总量达−1.6 Pg Cyr^−1。该研究揭示了火气溶胶对气候的作用在量化火灾气溶胶对全球陆地生态系统生产力方面的重要性。