Modeling Fire Effects on Soil Carbon Cycling
Caleb Adams, University of Texas at Austin
Fire can influence the global carbon cycle by affecting the ability of soil to store carbon across terrestrial ecosystems. Predicting the responses of soil carbon cycling to fire is challenging because fire impacts on soil carbon are not well represented across various land surface models, hampering our ability to understand the vulnerability of soil carbon storage to a changing climate. To guide land surface models and reduce model uncertainties, we provide a synthesis of the direct and indirect effects of fire on soil carbon storage and dynamics. Then we explore representations (or lack thereof) of these effects within 4 different land surface models: 1) ELM, 2) ELM-FATES, 3) ORCHIDEE, and 4) ecosys. We will discuss these representations and identify key missing components of the belowground carbon cycle that are underrepresented in models. Improving the representation of soil carbon cycling and its response to fire in existing land surface models are essential for accurate predictions of ecosystem responses to shifts in fire regimes.