Talk:Do we need to account for ecology to model climate change?

Prof. Ben Smith<br />Lund University, Sweden<br /><br />Venue: Alhmannsalen, Geoscience Building<br /><br />Summary:<br />Terrestrial ecosystems are part of the climate system. Climate-induced changes in vegetation composition, structure, distribution and greenhouse gas exchange feed back to the atmosphere from local to global scales. Current regional and global climate models account for instantaneous biophysical responses of land surface energy and water vapour exchange with the atmosphere. Emerging Earth system models also represent longer-term responses mediated by physiological processes and ecological interactions, but issues remain. Illustrating with simulation results from offline and coupled biosphere-atmosphere simulations with LPJ-GUESS, a second-generation global vegetation-biogeochemistry model, I highlight examples of how ecology - i.e. responses of organisms to a changing physical and biotic environment - influence forcing factors of relevance to climate dynamics globally and within the contrasting bioclimatic contexts of the Arctic and tropics.<br />