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Sandor, R., Ehrhardt, F., Grace, P., Recous, S., Smith, P., Snow, V., et al. (2020). Ensemble modelling of carbon fluxes in grasslands and croplands. Field Crops Research, 252, 107791.
Abstract: Croplands and grasslands are agricultural systems that contribute to land–atmosphere exchanges of carbon (C). We evaluated and compared gross primary production (GPP), ecosystem respiration (RECO), net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of CO2, and two derived outputs – C use efficiency (CUE=-NEE/GPP) and C emission intensity (IntC= -NEE/Offtake [grazed or harvested biomass]). The outputs came from 23 models (11 crop-specific, eight grassland-specific, and four models covering both systems) at three cropping sites over several rotations with spring and winter cereals, soybean and rapeseed in Canada, France and India, and two temperate permanent grasslands in France and the United Kingdom. The models were run independently over multi-year simulation periods in five stages (S), either blind with no calibration and initialization data (S1), using historical management and climate for initialization (S2), calibrated against plant data (S3), plant and soil data together (S4), or with the addition of C and N fluxes (S5). Here, we provide a framework to address methodological uncertainties and contextualize results. Most of the models overestimated or underestimated the C fluxes observed during the growing seasons (or the whole years for grasslands), with substantial differences between models. For each simulated variable, changes in the multi-model median (MMM) from S1 to S5 was used as a descriptor of the ensemble performance. Overall, the greatest improvements (MMM approaching the mean of observations) were achieved at S3 or higher calibration stages. For instance, grassland GPP MMM was equal to 1632 g C m−2 yr-1 (S5) while the observed mean was equal to 1763 m-2 yr-1 (average for two sites). Nash-Sutcliffe modelling efficiency coefficients indicated that MMM outperformed individual models in 92.3 % of cases. Our study suggests a cautious use of large-scale, multi-model ensembles to estimate C fluxes in agricultural sites if some site-specific plant and soil observations are available for model calibration. The further development of crop/grassland ensemble modelling will hinge upon the interpretation of results in light of the way models represent the processes underlying C fluxes in complex agricultural systems (grassland and crop rotations including fallow periods).
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Webber, H., White, J. W., Kimball, B. A., Ewert, F., Asseng, S., Rezaei, E. E., et al. (2018). Physical robustness of canopy temperature models for crop heat stress simulation across environments and production conditions. Field Crops Research, 216, 75–88.
Abstract: Despite widespread application in studying climate change impacts, most crop models ignore complex interactions among air temperature, crop and soil water status, CO2 concentration and atmospheric conditions that influence crop canopy temperature. The current study extended previous studies by evaluating Tc simulations from nine crop models at six locations across environmental and production conditions. Each crop model implemented one of an empirical (EMP), an energy balance assuming neutral stability (EBN) or an energy balance correcting for atmospheric stability conditions (EBSC) approach to simulate Tc. Model performance in predicting Tc was evaluated for two experiments in continental North America with various water, nitrogen and CO2 treatments. An empirical model fit to one dataset had the best performance, followed by the EBSC models. Stability conditions explained much of the differences between modeling approaches. More accurate simulation of heat stress will likely require use of energy balance approaches that consider atmospheric stability conditions.
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Wang, E., Martre, P., Zhao, Z., Ewert, F., Maiorano, A., Rötter, R. P., et al. (2017). The uncertainty of crop yield projections is reduced by improved temperature response functions. Nature Plants, 3, 17102.
Abstract: Increasing the accuracy of crop productivity estimates is a key element in planning adaptation strategies to ensure global food security under climate change. Process-based crop models are effective means to project climate impact on crop yield, but have large uncertainty in yield simulations. Here, we show that variations in the mathematical functions currently used to simulate temperature responses of physiological processes in 29 wheat models account for >50% of uncertainty in simulated grain yields for mean growing season temperatures from 14 °C to 33 °C. We derived a set of new temperature response functions that when substituted in four wheat models reduced the error in grain yield simulations across seven global sites with different temperature regimes by 19% to 50% (42% average). We anticipate the improved temperature responses to be a key step to improve modelling of crops under rising temperature and climate change, leading to higher skill of crop yield projections. Erratum: doi: 10.1038/nplants.2017.125
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Liu, B., Asseng, S., Müller, C., Ewert, F., Elliott, J., Lobell, D. B., et al. (2016). Similar estimates of temperature impacts on global wheat yield by three independent methods. Nat. Clim. Change, 6(12), 1130–1136.
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Nendel, C., Thorburn, P., Melzer, D., Cerri, C. E. P., Claessens, L., Aggarwal, P. K., et al. (2016). Soil nitrogen mineralisation simulated by crop models across different environments and the consequences for model improvement.. Berlin (Germany).
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