Articles | Volume 20, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-1313-2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-1313-2023
Research article
 | 
06 Apr 2023
Research article |  | 06 Apr 2023

Towards an ensemble-based evaluation of land surface models in light of uncertain forcings and observations

Vivek K. Arora, Christian Seiler, Libo Wang, and Sian Kou-Giesbrecht

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Cited articles

Arora, V. K. and Boer, G. J.: A parameterization of leaf phenology for the terrestrial ecosystem component of climate models, Glob. Change Biol., 11, 39–59, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2004.00890.x, 2005. 
Arora, V. K. and Boer, G. J.: Simulating Competition and Coexistence between Plant Functional Types in a Dynamic Vegetation Model, Earth Interact., 10, 1–30, 2006. 
Arora, V. K. and Melton, J. R.: Reduction in global area burned and wildfire emissions since 1930s enhances carbon uptake by land, Nat. Commun., 9, 1326, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03838-0, 2018. 
Arora, V. K., Boer, G. J., Christian, J. R., Curry, C. L., Denman, K. L., Zahariev, K., Flato, G. M., Scinocca, J. F., Merryfield, W. J., and Lee, W. G.: The Effect of Terrestrial Photosynthesis Down Regulation on the Twentieth-Century Carbon Budget Simulated with the CCCma Earth System Model, J. Climate, 22, 6066–6088, https://doi.org/10.1175/2009JCLI3037.1, 2009. 
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Short summary
The behaviour of natural systems is now very often represented through mathematical models. These models represent our understanding of how nature works. Of course, nature does not care about our understanding. Since our understanding is not perfect, evaluating models is challenging, and there are uncertainties. This paper illustrates this uncertainty for land models and argues that evaluating models in light of the uncertainty in various components provides useful information.
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