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Earth observation (EO) land surface products have been demonstrated to provide a constraint on the terrestrial carbon cycle that is complementary to the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide. We present the Joint Research Centre Two-stream Inversion Package (JRC-TIP) for retrieval of variables characterising the state of the vegetation–soil system. The system provides a set of land surface variables that satisfy all requirements for assimilation into the land component of climate and numerical weather prediction models. Being based on a 1-D representation of the radiative transfer within the canopy–soil system, such as those used in the land surface components of advanced global models, the JRC-TIP products are not only physically consistent internally, but they also achieve a high degree of consistency with these global models. Furthermore, the products are provided with full uncertainty information. We describe how these uncertainties are derived in a fully traceable manner without any hidden assumptions from the input observations, which are typically broadband white sky albedo products. Our discussion of the product uncertainty ranges, including the uncertainty reduction, highlights the central role of the leaf area index, which describes the density of the canopy. We explain the generation of products aggregated to coarser spatial resolution than that of the native albedo input and describe various approaches to the validation of JRC-TIP products, including the comparison against in situ observations. We present a JRC-TIP processing system that satisfies all operational requirements and explain how it delivers stable climate data records. Since many aspects of JRC-TIP are generic, the package can serve as an example of a state-of-the-art system for retrieval of EO products, and this contribution can help the user to understand advantages and limitations of such products.

Since 70 % of global forests are managed and forests impact the global carbon cycle and the energy exchange with the overlying atmosphere, forest management has the potential to mitigate climate change. Yet, none of the land-surface models used in Earth system models, and therefore none of today's predictions of future climate, accounts for the interactions between climate and forest management. We addressed this gap in modelling capability by developing and parametrising a version of the ORCHIDEE land-surface model to simulate the biogeochemical and biophysical effects of forest management. The most significant changes between the new branch called ORCHIDEE-CAN (SVN r2290) and the trunk version of ORCHIDEE (SVN r2243) are the allometric-based allocation of carbon to leaf, root, wood, fruit and reserve pools; the transmittance, absorbance and reflectance of radiation within the canopy; and the vertical discretisation of the energy budget calculations. In addition, conceptual changes were introduced towards a better process representation for the interaction of radiation with snow, the hydraulic architecture of plants, the representation of forest management and a numerical solution for the photosynthesis formalism of Farquhar, von Caemmerer and Berry. For consistency reasons, these changes were extensively linked throughout the code. Parametrisation was revisited after introducing 12 new parameter sets that represent specific tree species or genera rather than a group of often distantly related or even unrelated species, as is the case in widely used plant functional types. Performance of the new model was compared against the trunk and validated against independent spatially explicit data for basal area, tree height, canopy structure, gross primary production (GPP), albedo and evapotranspiration over Europe. For all tested variables, ORCHIDEE-CAN outperformed the trunk regarding its ability to reproduce large-scale spatial patterns as well as their inter-annual variability over Europe. Depending on the data stream, ORCHIDEE-CAN had a 67 to 92 % chance to reproduce the spatial and temporal variability of the validation data.

Dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) are an essential part of current state-of-the-art Earth system models. In recent years, the complexity of DGVMs has increased by incorporating new important processes like, e.g., nutrient cycling and land cover dynamics, while biogeophysical processes like surface radiation have not been developed much further. Canopy radiation models are however very important for the estimation of absorption and reflected fluxes and are essential for a proper estimation of surface carbon, energy and water fluxes. The present study provides an overview of current implementations of canopy radiation schemes in a couple of state-of-the-art DGVMs and assesses their accuracy in simulating canopy absorption and reflection for a variety of different surface conditions. Systematic deviations in surface albedo and fractions of absorbed photosynthetic active radiation (faPAR) are identified and potential impacts are assessed. The results show clear deviations for both, absorbed and reflected, surface solar radiation fluxes. FaPAR is typically underestimated, which results in an underestimation of gross primary productivity (GPP) for the investigated cases. The deviation can be as large as 25% in extreme cases. Deviations in surface albedo range between −0.15 ≤ Δα ≤ 0.36, with a slight positive bias on the order of Δα ≈ 0.04. Potential radiative forcing caused by albedo deviations is estimated at −1.25 ≤ RF ≤ −0.8 (W m−2), caused by neglect of the diurnal cycle of surface albedo. The present study is the first one that provides an assessment of canopy RT schemes in different currently used DGVMs together with an assessment of the potential impact of the identified deviations. The paper illustrates that there is a general need to improve the canopy radiation schemes in DGVMs and provides different perspectives for their improvement.

Although forest management is one of the instruments proposed to mitigate climate change, the relationship between forest management and canopy albedo has been ignored so far by climate models. Here we develop an approach that could be implemented in Earth system models. A stand-level forest gap model is combined with a canopy radiation transfer model and satellite-derived model parameters to quantify the effects of forest thinning on summertime canopy albedo. This approach reveals which parameter has the largest affect on summer canopy albedo: we examined the effects of three forest species (pine, beech, oak) and four thinning strategies with a constant forest floor albedo (light to intense thinning regimes) and five different solar zenith angles at five different sites (40° N 9° E–60° N 9° E). During stand establishment, summertime canopy albedo is driven by tree species. In the later stages of stand development, the effect of tree species on summertime canopy albedo decreases in favour of an increasing influence of forest thinning. These trends continue until the end of the rotation, where thinning explains up to 50% of the variance in near-infrared albedo and up to 70% of the variance in visible canopy albedo. The absolute summertime canopy albedo of all species ranges from 0.03 to 0.06 (visible) and 0.20 to 0.28 (near-infrared); thus the albedo needs to be parameterised at species level. In addition, Earth system models need to account for forest management in such a way that structural changes in the canopy are described by changes in leaf area index and crown volume (maximum change of 0.02 visible and 0.05 near-infrared albedo) and that the expression of albedo depends on the solar zenith angle (maximum change of 0.02 visible and 0.05 near-infrared albedo). Earth system models taking into account these parameters would not only be able to examine the spatial effects of forest management but also the total effects of forest management on climate.

The terrestrial biosphere is currently a strong sink for anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Through the radiative properties of CO2, the strength of this sink has a direct influence on the radiative budget of the global climate system. The accurate assessment of this sink and its evolution under a changing climate is, hence, paramount for any efficient management strategies of the terrestrial carbon sink to avoid dangerous climate change. Unfortunately, simulations of carbon and water fluxes with terrestrial biosphere models exhibit large uncertainties. A considerable fraction of this uncertainty reflects uncertainty in the parameter values of the process formulations within the models. This paper describes the systematic calibration of the process parameters of a terrestrial biosphere model against two observational data streams: remotely sensed FAPAR (fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation) provided by the MERIS (ESA's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer) sensor and in situ measurements of atmospheric CO2 provided by the GLOBALVIEW flask sampling network. We use the Carbon Cycle Data Assimilation System (CCDAS) to systematically calibrate some 70 parameters of the terrestrial BETHY (Biosphere Energy Transfer Hydrology) model. The simultaneous assimilation of all observations provides parameter estimates and uncertainty ranges that are consistent with the observational information. In a subsequent step these parameter uncertainties are propagated through the model to uncertainty ranges for predicted carbon fluxes. We demonstrate the consistent assimilation at global scale, where the global MERIS FAPAR product and atmospheric CO2 are used simultaneously. The assimilation improves the match to independent observations. We quantify how MERIS data improve the accuracy of the current and future (net and gross) carbon flux estimates (within and beyond the assimilation period). We further demonstrate the use of an interactive mission benefit analysis tool built around CCDAS to support the design of future space missions. We find that, for long-term averages, the benefit of FAPAR data is most pronounced for hydrological quantities, and moderate for quantities related to carbon fluxes from ecosystems. The benefit for hydrological quantities is highest for semi-arid tropical or sub-tropical regions. Length of mission or sensor resolution is of minor importance.