Implementing northern peatlands in a global land surface model: description and evaluation in the ORCHIDEE high-latitude  version model (ORC-HL-PEAT)

Largeron, Chloé; Krinner, Gerhard; Ciais, Philippe; Brutel-Vuilmet, Claire

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-3279-2018

Articles | Volume 11, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-3279-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Changing Permafrost in the Arctic and its Global Effects in...

https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-11-3279-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 11, issue 8

Development and technical paper

|

14 Aug 2018

Development and technical paper |

| 14 Aug 2018

Implementing northern peatlands in a global land surface model: description and evaluation in the ORCHIDEE high-latitude version model (ORC-HL-PEAT)

Chloé Largeron, Gerhard Krinner, Philippe Ciais, and Claire Brutel-Vuilmet

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Final revised paper (published on 14 Aug 2018)
Preprint (discussion started on 07 Jul 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

SC1: 'Executive Editor Comment on "Implementing northern peatlands in a global land surface model: description and evaluation in the ORCHIDEE high latitude version model"', Astrid Kerkweg, 18 Jul 2017
- SC2: 'Thanks', Chloé Largeron, 16 Jan 2018
RC1: 'paper review', Anonymous Referee #1, 05 Feb 2018
- AC1: 'Author comment for referee 1', Chloé Largeron, 01 Apr 2018
- AC3: 'Revised article', Chloé Largeron, 03 Apr 2018
RC2: 'Anonymous review', Anonymous Referee #2, 01 Mar 2018
- AC2: 'Author comment for referee 2', Chloé Largeron, 01 Apr 2018
- AC4: 'Revised article', Chloé Largeron, 03 Apr 2018

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Chloé Largeron on behalf of the Authors (03 Apr 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (06 Apr 2018) by Gerd A. Folberth

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (17 May 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

General comments
This paper is some what improved however I feel that there are still some outstanding issues to be addressed and with some careful thought on slight restructuring and simplification it can still be significantly improved.
I feel the structure needs to be modified. In particular the modelling improvements (2.3.2 and 2.3.3) need to come directly after the model description so the reader hasn’t forgotten the structure of the original model. Section 2.3.2. could be made clearer on exactly what has been modified for the peat pft – just two things?
The stated aim of the paper is to look at the hydrology which seems to have compensating errors so on the large scale there is a small net effect. However Figure 2 is definitely not hydrology and actually the pft changes are good. It is actually a really good result, so should probably stay in but then that still begs the question of what about the large scale nee/gpp? Also the bit about CH4 in the first paragraph of the discussion makes me want to ask more about it. I am not sure that the second part of the paragraph is that relevant here.
The site descriptions can be put in a table to simplify things.
I presume the soils are not compressible? What impact might including those have on the results?
Do you have any suggestions as to how to deal with the issue of resolution dependence? How might this impact the TWS results?
Can you cite some literature to suggest that we expect peat soils to have reduced variability of water storage?
Also is there some evidence in the literature that minerotrophic peatlands might be more sensitive to precipitation than ombrotrophic peatlands in the real world?
How different is the precipitation forcing between WFDEI and CRU-NCEP?
Please can you get a native english speaker to read the final version through – there are some awkward phrases particularly in the introduction, but also throughout the text.
Minor comments
Page 3, line 25 – one soil parameter is misleading
Page 6, first paragraph not relevant. Also I am not quite sure of the meaning of the last sentence in section 2.3.1. Not all of the peatlands observed have been identified?
Section 2.3.2 line 36 is repeated information.
Page 8 line 1 – lateral water flow comes from runoff and indirectly from precipitation. I am a bit confused about whether there is any difference in treatment between surface and subsurface runoff. Page 10 line 31 – what about surface runoff? Why cant we add simulated subsurface runoff?
Page 11 line 4 – these three sites? Just talking about two sites in the previous sentence. Why are the differences in the Siikaneva not snow related?
Figure 1b is separate from Fig 1a so should be separated. Also figure 4a can be separated and made figure 1.
I still think figure 2 looks a bit odd. Aso toy want the new model results to stand out not the old ones.
Figure 3. change axes for precipitation.
Figure 7 – the differences between the dashed and solid line need to be more clearly defined in the caption.
Figure 8 still ahs too many lines and too many seasonal cycles on it to see it clearly. There is an interesting time offset in the TWS between the model and observations which will become clearer when the x-axis is expanded. Move (b) in the figure caption to the beginning of the sentence.
Please change humidity to soil moisture.
STD is used twice for two different simulations.
Page 20 line 27 – how did you define the presence or absence of frozen soils and snow – this is going to be different depending on the model or observational data set, so it is hard to make the two comparable.
Page 22, line 15 – this sentence or two can probably be removed.

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (22 May 2018) by Gerd A. Folberth

AR by Chloé Largeron on behalf of the Authors (18 Jul 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (19 Jul 2018) by Gerd A. Folberth

AR by Chloé Largeron on behalf of the Authors (24 Jul 2018) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

Peatlands are widely present in boreal regions and contain large carbon stocks due to their hydrologic properties and high water content. We have enhanced the global land surface model ORCHIDEE by introducing boreal peatlands. These are considered as a new type of vegetation in the model, with specific hydrological properties for peat soil. In this paper, we focus on the representation of the hydrology of northern peatlands and on the evaluation of the hydrological impact of this implementation.