CAMELS PROJECT OVERVIEW

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CAMELS PROJECT OVERVIEW
Peter Cox, Hadley Centre, Met Office

• Motivation for CAMELS
• Deliverables
• Products
• Structure

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Kyoto Sinks

• Article 3.3 The net change in greenhouse gas
  emissions by sources and removals by sinks
  resulting from direct human-induced land-use
  change and forestry activities, measured as
  verifiable changes shall be used to meet the
  commitments.
• Article 3.4 each Party shall provide
  data to establish its level of carbon stocks in
  1990 and to enable an estimate to be made of its
  changes in carbon stocks in subsequent years

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CAMELS and the Kyoto Protocol

• Annex I countries are permitted to partially
  offset their emissions of CO2 by carbon
  accumulated due to forest management and
  additional human-induced change in land-use and
  land management.
• The related sources and sinks of CO2 must be
  reported in a transparent and verifiable
  manner.
• CAMELS will provide key support to EU countries
  in meeting their obligations under Kyoto.

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CAMELS Motivating Science Questions

• Where are the current carbon sources and sinks
  located on the land and how do European sinks
  compare with other large continental areas?
•  Why do these sources and sinks exist, i.e. what
  are the relative contributions of CO2
  fertilisation, nitrogen deposition, climate
  variability, land management and land-use change?
• How could we make optimal use of existing data
  sources and the latest models to produce
  operational estimates of the European land carbon
  sink?

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Inverse Modelling

• Method Use atmospheric transport model to
  infer CO2 sources and sinks most consistent with
  atmospheric CO2 measurements.
• Advantages a) Large-scale b) Data based
  (transparency).
• Disadvantages a) Uncertain (network too
  sparse) b) not constrained by ecophysiological
  understanding c) net CO2 flux only (cannot
  isolate land management).

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Inverse Modelling - Uncertainties

• Fan et al. (1998) 1.7 GtC/yr sink in North
  America.
• Bousquet et al. (1999) 0.5 /- 0.6 GtC/yr in
  North America, 1.3 GtC/yr in Siberia.

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Forward Modelling

• Method Build bottom-up process-based models
  of land and ocean carbon uptake.
• Advantages a) Include physical and
  ecophysiological constraints b) Can isolate
  land-management effects c) can be used
  predictively (not just monitoring).
• Disadvantages a) Uncertain (gaps in process
  understanding) b) Do not make optimal use of
  large-scale observational constraints.

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Forward Modelling - Land Uncertainties
Smoothed Mean and Standard Deviation of DGVM
Predictions (Cramer et al., 2001) Diagram from
Royal Soc. Sinks Report
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CAMELS Products

• Best estimates and uncertainty bounds for the
  contemporary and historical land carbon sinks in
  Europe and elsewhere, isolating the effects of
  direct land-management.
• A prototype carbon cycle data assimilation system
  (CCDAS) exploiting existing data sources (e.g.
  flux measurements, carbon inventory data,
  satellite products) and the latest terrestrial
  ecosystem models (TEMs), in order to produce
  operational estimates of Kyoto sinks.

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CAMELS Workpackages

• WP1. Data Harmonisation and Consolidation
  (ALTERRA)
• WP2. Model Validation and Uncertainty Analysis
  (MPI-BGC)
• WP3. Modelling of the 20th Century Land Carbon
  Balance (LSCE)
• WP4. Development of a System for Carbon Data
  Assimilation (MetO)
• WP5. Dissemination of Information (UNITUS)

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CAMELS Flow Diagram
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CAMELS Facts and figures

• CAMELS is a key part of the CarboEurope cluster.
• CAMELS involves a coordinator (Met Office), 8
  contractors (CEA, MPI-BGC, ALTERRA, UNITUS, EFI,
  NERC, CNRS, JRC) and 1 subcontractor (FastOpt).
• CAMELS will receive 1.4MEuro over 3 years from
  1st Nov 2002-31st Oct 2005.
• CAMELS will provide improved estimates or
  historical and contemporary land carbon sinks.
• CAMELS will combine the best data sources and
  forward carbon models to produce a carbon cycle
  data assimilation system.

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CAMELS Deliverables 1
   
 
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CAMELS Deliverables 2
   
 
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CAMELS Deliverables 3