Quantifying the Ecosystem Role in the Carbon Cycle (QUERCC)
QUERCC addresses land surface processes over timescales from days to centuries, with particular emphasis on the carbon cycle. Some processes are already well represented and validated in Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs), while others that are known to impact on the carbon cycle are not. Independent carbon and vegetation data sets are being compared against DVGMs to assess their current state, and further key modules will be developed for nutrient cycling, which exerts a major feedback on carbon exchange, and for a greater resolution of plant processes. A global map of plant functional types that exert significant impacts on the carbon cycle will also be developed.
The Principal Investigator in this project is Prof Ian Woodward from University of Sheffield, with 11 co-investigators at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), the Forestry Commission's Forest Research, the Agriculture and the Environment Division at Rothamsted Research and the Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Leeds, York, Oxford and Southampton.
Dr. Yadvinder S. Malhi and Dr. Joshua B. Fisher at Oxford University Centre for the Environment focus on plant nitrogen modeling (fixation, uptake, allocation) within the DVGM for QUERCC.
Nitrogen is one of the nutrients that can most limit plant growth, and nitrogen availability may therefore be a controlling factor on biosphere responses to climate change. However, many of the global climate models that have been used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change process do not account for this limitation on the ability of ecosystems to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, instead exaggerating the terrestrial biosphere’s potential to slow atmospheric CO2 rise.
As part of the multi-partner QUERCC project (Quantifying the ecosystem role in the carbon cycle) ECI has sought to improve understanding of plant nitrogen uptake, retranslocation, and fixation, building a mechanistic, globally-applicable model. The Fixation and Uptake of Nitrogen model (FUN) is now being coupled with a soil model and dynamic global vegetation model as part of the UK Meteorological Office’s Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES).
The Fixation and Uptake of Nitrogen model (FUN)
