Forecasting the responses of land-atmosphere carbon and water fluxes to spatial and temporal variability in soil moisture stress

Alexander R. Young, Forest and Natural Resources Management, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY, George G. Burba, LI-COR Biosciences, Lincoln, NE; R.B. Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute, Lincoln, NE, Jamie Cleverly, Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), Ankur R. Desai, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, Michael Dietze, Boston University, Andrew M. Fox, School of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, William Hammond, Plant Biology, Ecology, and Evolution, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, Danica Lombardozzi, CGD, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO and Quinn Thomas, Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA

Terrestrial ecosystems play a critical role in regulating global carbon and water cycles but, despite global networks’ monitoring land-atmosphere fluxes and the availability of numerous hindcast model-intercomparisons, we have a limited understanding of the timescales of predictability of these fluxes and their dependability on moisture stress. In this forecasting challenge teams submitted half-hourly or daily forecasts of soil moisture, CO2 and water fluxes, at four NEON sites spanning a continental moisture gradient. Each forecast is for a 35 day period submitted monthly in 2021. Here we present an initial comparison of the performances of diverse forecasting approaches employed by participants.