Terrestrial ecosystem-climate interactions of our EMERALD planet

Informations

Funding country

Norway

Acronym

-

URL

-

Start date

1/1/2019

End date

12/31/2023

Budget

3,688,893 EUR

Fundings

Abstract

Plants regulate the cycles of carbon dioxide and water, affect the composition of the atmosphere and how the landscape absorbs and reflects sunlight. As such vegetation is not only shaped by climate, it also feeds back to the atmosphere and shapes the environment. An example of such feedbacks is a change in the forest line due to global warming, which in turn affects the climate through changes in the reflection of solar radiation, the amount of water that is evaporated, how much carbon is stored - processes that in turn influence the climate. Such feedbacks can be positive (enhances the climate change signal) or negative (counteracts climate change). EMERALD is an interdisciplinary, nationally coordinated project that integrates research groups in Norway studying the role of vegetation in the climate system. The project aims to improve the understanding of ecosystem processes and their representation in global climate models. Focus is on boreal and Arctic ecosystems, such as evergreen trees, deciduous trees, shrubs, mosses and lichens - vegetation types not yet satisfactory represented in climate models. We work interdisciplinary - across scientific fields and expertise - with the long-term goal to improve projections of climate change for our northern region. EMERALD works towards improving the land module (CLM) in the Norwegian Earth System model (NorESM), by integrating data and knowledge from field-based ecosystem research. This includes a more advanced version of CLM that accounts for dynamic vegetation (CLM-FATES). The development of a joint model platform (NorESM Land Sites Platform), including a user-friendly interface for running CLM for selected sites, has facilitated coordinated testing and development of the model - also for non-expert users. The model and a tutorial are open-source (on GitHub) and used with positive experience within teaching. The platform is a key asset of much of the work done within the group and facilitates interdisciplinary and collaborative studies internally as well as with external partners. The development is done in close collaboration with the IT-group at the Department of Geosciences (UiO) and is documented in a separate scientific publication. Vegetation is represented in CLM-FATES through Plant Functional Types (PFTs). A particular effort has gone into creating a separate PFT for mosses and lichen. Preliminary results show that our model is able to capture the low photosynthetic activity of moss compared to grassland – in line with observations. We further work towards a new representation of soil organic matter decomposition and a new frost mortality and hardening scheme in FATES. Field observations and experiments are key for the development, testing and evaluation of models, and will continue in 2023. Field work and field experiments are located at Finse, Hedmark, western Norway, in Finnmark and on Svalbard, and is largely linked to existing projects and research infrastructure. The level of field activities was high during 2022. Worth mentioning is the repetition of the winter warming experiment at Finse last year simulating a warm winter and rain-on-snow events (measuring potential effects on the vegetation the following summer), as well as experiments both in the field and lab studying the tolerant limits of plants to extreme conditions, such as extreme temperatures, light conditions, air humidity and drought. We also look at the effect of wetland restauration on the water-, energy- and carbon balance, and the role of evaporation on the water balance in particular (local and regional scale). EMERALD places large emphasis on disseminating research and has an active website where news are published, such as high impact science publications and popular science contributions. In collaboration with the Centre for Biogeochemistry in the Anthropocene (CBA) at UiO, four scientific articles by EMERALD authors were published (in Norwegian) in a special issue in the popular science journal ‘Naturen’. Results are also disseminated through the Norwegian Centre of Climate Services, and as contributions to exhibitions and the media (blog, newspapers, etc.). The temporary exhibition “Natur i Endring” produced by EMERALD was moved in 2021 to the Norwegian Mountain Museum in Lom. The exhibition emphasis feedbacks between climate and vegetation and targets a young audience. The exhibition will stay at Lom for two more years. Results from EMERALD is communicated at stakeholder meetings with participants from the agriculture and forestry sector. Worth mentioning is also our contributions to a blog at forskning.no on afforestation (“Søkelys på skogplanting”). Interdisciplinary knowledge at the interface between vegetation and climate is key in the course Ecological Climatology at UiO and in a course at UiB that offers hands-on training in different applications of plant functional traits.