The effect of using the plant functional type paradigm on a data-constrained global phenology model

Caldararu, Silvia; Purves, Drew W.; Smith, Matthew J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-925-2016

Articles | Volume 13, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-925-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-925-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 4

Research article

|

18 Feb 2016

Research article |

| 18 Feb 2016

The effect of using the plant functional type paradigm on a data-constrained global phenology model

Silvia Caldararu, Drew W. Purves, and Matthew J. Smith

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Final revised paper (published on 18 Feb 2016)
Preprint (discussion started on 19 Oct 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC C7807: 'Comments on 'The effect of using the plant functional type paradigm on a data-constrained global phenology model'', Anonymous Referee #1, 19 Nov 2015
- AC C8894: 'Reply to reviewer 1', Silvia Caldararu, 07 Jan 2016
RC C7879: 'Review comments on "The effect of using the plant functional type paradigm on a data-constrained global phenology model"', Anonymous Referee #2, 23 Nov 2015
- AC C8901: 'Reply to review 2', Silvia Caldararu, 07 Jan 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (14 Jan 2016) by Kirsten Thonicke

Dear Dr. Caldararu,
thanks for submitting your author responses to both reviews and your detailed replies. This is very valuable.
I have only some minor remarks which I ask you to consider in the final revised version of your manuscript:
1. In your response to reviewer 1 regarding the use of PFTs in DGVMs and their advantage for future projections you mention alternative approaches to PFTs e.g. Fisher et al GMD 2015. Please mention these alternative approaches in the revised manuscript. There are number of approaches being published.
2. regarding the comment on units in "p. 16854 line 2: It’s confusing to me that leaf level compensation point is in W/m2 but canopy level is in umol/m2/s." (Reviewer 1), you reply: "This results from the units that the original PAR data is in as well as the structure of the
model." I ask you to include this in the revised manuscript.
3. regarding the comment "p. 16859 lines 1-4: again, are there figures to back up these statements?" you reply "Yes, all statements in this paragraphs are based on Figure 1." Please make sure Fig.1 is referenced in this paragraph in the revised manuscript.
4. Please cite Caldararu et al. 2014 to refer to the comparison of age_crit in Section 5.1
5. The explanation of the two different light compensation points need to be clearly described in the methods section. Your changes to the text in the discussion section is equally important.
6. Reviewer 2 comments on Figs 3 and 6. You reply "The PFT which show an abnormally low LAI is the evergreen boreal forest, which has some problems due to heterogeneity even at the native resolution, as discussed in Caldararu et al. (2014)". Please add information relevant to understand Fig.3 and 6 and cite your 2014 paper where relevant in the manuscript.
7. Please make sure that the explanation of non-regular seasonal cycles in arid ecosystems and the handling of crops is included in the revised manuscript.

I hope these comments help to finalize the manuscript and present your findings in a good way.
Best wishes,
Kirsten Thonicke.

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AR by Silvia Caldararu on behalf of the Authors (20 Jan 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (25 Jan 2016) by Kirsten Thonicke

AR by Silvia Caldararu on behalf of the Authors (25 Jan 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (05 Feb 2016) by Kirsten Thonicke

Short summary

The plant functional type (PFT) concept is widely used in global vegetation models but recent studies have attempted to replace this with a more biologically representative formulation by using plant traits. In this study we aim to quantify the performance of a data-constrained leaf phenology model that uses PFTs when compared to one that uses local traits. We show that the PFT model performs relatively poorly but we can identify a small number of traits that improve model performance.