Spatial biases reduce the ability of earth system models to simulate soil heterotrophic respiration fluxes
Heterotrophic respiration (Rh) is, at a global scale, one of the largest CO2 fluxes between the earth’s surface and atmosphere and may increase in the future. Yet, the capacity of Earth System Models (ESMs) to reproduce this flux has never been evaluated, causing uncertainty in resulting CO2 flux estimates. In this study, we combine recently released observational data on Rh and ESM simulations to evaluate, for the first time, the ability of 13 ESMs to reproduce Rh. Only four of the 13 tested were able to reproduce the total Rh flux but spatial analysis underlined important bias compensation. We observed that mean annual precipitation was the most important driver explaining the difference between ESM simulations and observation-derived product of Rh with higher bias between ESM simulations and Rh products where precipitation was high. Based on our results, next-generation ESMs should focus on improving the response of Rh to soil moisture.
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