Breaking down differences in modeling soil water substantially shifts carbon stored in land

Friday, August 29, 2014 - 06:00 in Earth & Climate

The starting point very often changes the finish. A team led by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory modeled runoff, that is, water's movement over the land surface and through the subsurface, using two widely adopted methods. They found that the modeling choices result in differences that ultimately swing results in carbon cycle simulations—by as much as 20 percent. The differences in modeling runoff methods cause substantial differences in the soil moisture that also changes soil temperature. Their study was published in the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems.

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