Toward more realistic projections of soil carbon dynamics by Earth system models

Abstract Soil carbon (C) is a critical component of Earth system models (ESMs), and its diverse representations are a major source of the large spread across models in the terrestrial C sink from the third to fifth assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Improving soil C projections is of a high priority for Earth system modeling in the future IPCC and other assessments. To achieve this goal, we suggest that (1) model structures should reflect real‐world processes, (2) parameters should be calibrated to match model outputs with observations, and (3) external forcing variables should accurately prescribe the environmental conditions that soils experience. First, most soil C…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Awards: EPS 0919466, 0850290, 0840964, EF 1137293, 1137293, 0919466, DBI 0850290, DEB 0840964
• UD
  U.S. Department of Energy

  Awards: DE‐SC0008270, DE-SC0006982, DE-SC0008270, DE‐SC0010715, DE SC0008270, DE‐SC0014062, EF 1137293, DE-SC0010715, DE‐SC0006982, DE-SC0004601, DE‐SC0004601, SC0006982
• DF
  Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK Government

  Award: GA01101
• MO
  Met Office

  Award: GA01101