Summary
This paper presents Community Land Model version 5 (CLM5), the default land component of CESM2, detailing eight major categories of new or updated processes including hydrology, snow, plant hydraulics, nitrogen cycling, and a global crop model with six crop types. The authors conduct comprehensive benchmarking across an ensemble of simulations and forcing datasets, concluding that multivariate metrics indicate general broad improvement from CLM4 to CLM5, though this assessment is complicated by forcing and parametric uncertainty. CLM5 introduces several novel features including dynamic vegetation modelling options, ozone damage representation, and fire trace gas emissions coupling.
UK applicability
As a global land surface model used in Earth system modelling, CLM5 improvements may indirectly enhance climate and agricultural projections relevant to UK conditions, particularly through better representation of crop processes and nitrogen cycling. However, the abstract does not specifically validate CLM5 performance for UK-specific soils, crops, or climate regimes, so direct applicability to UK farming or policy requires separate regional assessment.
Key measures
International Land Model Benchmarking (ILAMBv2) package metrics across multiple variables; ensemble simulations with prescribed and prognostic vegetation states; comparisons between CLM4, CLM4.5, and CLM5 versions
Outcomes reported
The study describes new processes and parameterizations in CLM5 including dynamic land units, updated hydrology and snow physics, plant hydraulics, nitrogen cycling, global crop model, and stomatal physiology. Multivariate benchmarking metrics suggest broad improvement from CLM4 to CLM5, though forcing and parametric uncertainty complicate definitive assessment of individual variables.
Topic tags
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