The University of Arizona

Earthsystems Modeling Lab

The model will be a fully-coupled model system representing complex interactions between climatic, hydrologic, ecologic, and geomorphologic processes across scales. The model will be built upon existing models that have experienced long-term developments in their own disciplines.

Objectives

  • At hillslope scales: Help refine experimental and instrumental design and generate cross-disciplinary hypotheses through hypothesis–experiment–modeling–new hypothesis “learning cycle”.
     
  • At catchment/basin scales: Study the interactions between climate, water, and plants, .e.g., impacts of climate change on biological communities and  productivities through changes in water availability, and impacts of ecosystem community change on water cycle.
     
  • At regional/global scales: Impacts of land use/land cover change (LULC) and water use on regional/global climate through water and carbon exchanges with the atmosphere.

Suggested Components

  • A distributed hydrological model
    1. Soil water and groundwater flow based on 3-D Richards equation
    2. Surface water routing based on diffusive wave
     
  • A land surface model
    1. Thermal states of snow, soil, and the vegetation canopy
    2. Radiation transfer considering the vegetation 3D structure effects
    3. Surface turbulent transfer of latent heat and sensible heat exchanges
    4. Water phase change: snow and frozen soil, etc.
     
  • A soil and water chemistry model
    1. Soil carbon decomposition/respiration and CH4 emission
    2. Nutrients: nitrogen and phosphorus
    3. Mineral transformation and soil texture/structure
     
  • A soil erosion model
    1. Soil erosion, transport, and deposition
     
  • A vegetation model
    1. Photosynthesis & respiration,
    2. Carbon assimilation/allocation to vegetation parts
    3. Competition, size and age (biotic processes)
    4. BVOC emissions
     
  • Human dimensions
    1. Agriculture: land use/water use; Irrigation (including groundwater pumping and surface water use)/manure (nitrogen enrichment)
    2. Urbanization (emissions related to air quality; sewage related to water quality)
    3. Data models (collecting related data through remote sensing, water offices, USGS; establish datasets for a region or the US).
     
  • An atmospheric model
    1. e.g., the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model. The model is now under construction.

Collaborators

Claudio Paniconi, Peter Troch, Jon Pelletier, Jon Chorover, Travis Huxman, Scott Saleska, David Breshears, Xubin Zeng, etc.