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Seasonal greening in grasslands

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dc.contributor.authorOrescanin, Biljana, author
dc.contributor.authorDenning, A. Scott, advisor
dc.contributor.authorRandall, David A., committee member
dc.contributor.authorPaustian, Keith H., committee member
dc.date.accessioned2007-01-03T05:55:55Z
dc.date.available2007-01-03T05:55:55Z
dc.date.issued2013
dc.description.abstractGrasslands cover about one quarter of the Earth's land and are currently considered to act as carbon sinks, taking up an estimated 0.5 Gt C per year. Thus, robust understanding of the grassland biome (e.g. representation of seasonal cycle of plant growth and the amount of green mass, often referred to as phenology, in global carbon models) plays a key role in understanding and predicting the global carbon cycle. The focus of this research is on improvement of a grassland biome representation in a biosphere model, which sometimes fails to correctly represent the phenology of vegetation. For this purpose, as a part of Simple Biosphere model (SiB3), a phenology model is tested and improved to provide more realistic representation of plant growth dependence on available moisture, which along with temperature and light controls plant growth. The new methodology employs integrated soil moisture in plant growth simulation. This new representation addresses the nature of the plants to use their root system to access the water supply. At same time it represents the plant's moisture recourses more accurately than the currently used vapor pressure method, which in grasslands is often non-correlated with soil conditions. The new technique has been developed and tested on data from the Skukuza flux tower site in South Africa and evaluated at 6 different flux tower sites around the world covering a variety of climate conditions. The technique is relatively easy and inexpensive to implement into the existing model providing excellent results capturing both the onset of green season and greening cycle at all locations. Although the method is developed for grasslands biome its representation of natural plant processes provides a good potential for its global use.
dc.format.mediumborn digital
dc.format.mediummasters theses
dc.identifierOrescanin_colostate_0053N_11847.pdf
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10217/80284
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherColorado State University. Libraries
dc.relation.ispartof2000-2019
dc.rightsCopyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.
dc.subjectcarbon cycle
dc.subjectgrasslands
dc.subjectphenology
dc.subjectseasonal greening
dc.subjectSiB3
dc.subjectsoil moisture
dc.titleSeasonal greening in grasslands
dc.typeText
dcterms.rights.dplaThis Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights (https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/). You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
thesis.degree.disciplineAtmospheric Science
thesis.degree.grantorColorado State University
thesis.degree.levelMasters
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Science (M.S.)

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