Ecosystem Parts of the IARC Earth System Model

Researcher: Meibing Jin
Funding Source: NSF (IARC Cooperative Agreement)
Collaborators: Clara Deal, Peter McRoy (IARC), Jingfeng Wu (IARC), Dave McGuire, Eugenie Euskirchen

The goal is to jointly develop the ecosystem parts of the IARC earth system model in order to quantify the relative current and possible future influences of arctic marine ecosystems on the global climate system.

The approach includes synthesis of previous ecosystem model studies and observations, incorporating new advances in the ecosystem models into the IARC-ESM. We will interface with other modeling groups of the IARC Cooperative Agreement in the design of coordinated model experiments. We will initially conduct retrospective studies with modeling tools to understand how the feedback pathways have been changing in recent decades. We will then conduct experiments with climate model runs for standard IPCC emissions scenarios. Our arctic terrestrial and marine ecosystem modeling tools will be driven by common climate forcing in the stand-alone studies, so that we can understand the relative strength of estimated responses that influence climate from terrestrial and marine ecosystems. McGuire will lead the synthesis and across all aspects of Targeted Activity 2, which includes modeling studies to investigate climate feedbacks associated with 1) responses of vegetation of high latitude terrestrial ecosystems to climate change; 2) responses of carbon dioxide; 3) responses of DMS emissions from a more ice-free Arctic Ocean; and 4) changes in the carbon dynamics of the Arctic Ocean. We will work with Targeted Activity 4 (Interaction of Global Warming and Arctic Climate; collaborator Vladimir Alexeev) to evaluate the degree to which responses of Arctic Ecosystems have consequences for climate both within and beyond the Arctic.

We anticipate the research will result in a number of peer-reviewed papers and reports.

Contributions include participation in the development of a coupled-ice-ocean ecosystem model that is part of IARC-ESM, and analysis of the model output.