In January, the Biosphere Domain convened its first meeting of vegetation modellers to discuss progress toward the TIPMIP biosphere modelling protocol. The discussions brought together researchers using a range of approaches to simulate how ecosystems interact with climate, including dynamic global vegetation models, fully coupled Earth system models, trait-based adaptive vegetation models, and integrative meta-modeling frameworks.
TIPMIP-BIOSPHERE conducts and analyses experiments to investigate biosphere responses to environmental change. The discussed ecosystems encompass, so far, the Amazon Rainforest and boreal forest, among others. The experiments aim at tackling an array of forcings including climate change, CO2, fire and extreme events.
The meeting also provided a forum for discussing how to define tipping behaviour in the biosphere, including which variables best capture ecosystem change, the timescales over which transitions unfold, and the spatial scales at which they emerge. The TIPMIP Biosphere Domain welcomes continued collaboration with a broad community of modellers to strengthen research on ecosystem resilience and climate–biosphere feedbacks.
To get in touch with the Biosphere domain, feel free to register your model, and/or reach out at biosphere@tipmip.org.