Carbon cycle models

The coupled climate-carbon cycle model is based on the Met Office Hadley Centre climate model, HadCM3, but it includes the ocean and terrestrial carbon cycle components described earlier. The coupling is fully interactive, in that the behaviour of each model component can feedback and affect the other components.

The climate model provides climate information on the state of the atmosphere to the terrestrial carbon cycle model 'TRIFFID' [Cox, 2001]. TRIFFID then updates the state of the land surface and vegetation cover and feeds this back to the climate model.

The climate model also provides information on the physical state of the ocean to the ocean carbon cycle model 'HadOCC' [Palmer and Totterdell, 2001]. HadOCC then updates the state of the ocean distribution of carbon dioxide and plankton.

Both TRIFFID and HadOCC calculate fluxes of carbon dioxide to or from the atmosphere and update the concentration accordingly. Anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (from both fossil fuel burning and land use change) are also fed into the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.

The coupling of the different components is shown schematically in the figure below.

Schematic representation of the coupling together of the Met Office Hadley Centre climate model with the terrestrial and oceanic carbon cycle models.