PNNL

Abstract

There is a continued need for models to improve consistency and agreement with observations [Friedlingstein et al., 2006], both overall and under more frequent extreme climatic events related to global environmental change such as drought [Trenberth et al., 2007]. Past validation studies of terrestrial biosphere models have focused only on few models and sites, typically in close proximity and primarily in forested biomes [e.g., Amthor et al., 2001; Delpierre et al., 2009; Grant et al., 2005; Hanson et al., 2004; Granier et al., 2007; Ichii et al., 2009; Ito, 2008; Siqueira et al., 2006; Zhou et al., 2008]. Furthermore, assessing model-data agreement relative to drought requires, in addition to high-quality observedCO2 exchange data, a reliable drought metric as well as a natural experiment across sites and drought conditions.