Integration of AgMIP Results for the Development of Agricultural Response Functions for PNNL Models - Phase 3
- Lead PI: Carolyn Mutter
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Unit Affiliation: Center for Climate Systems Research (CCSR)
- October 2018 - December 2019
- Inactive
- Global ; New York City, NY ; New York
- Project Type: Research
DESCRIPTION: The Columbia University/Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) Team[1] will partner with researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI) to utilize cutting-edge agricultural modeling results in the developement of agricultural response functions ('Persephone') that will enable new functionality and internal dynamics within JGCRI's GCAM model. The team will then work with JGCRI to utilize a version of GCAM that includes Persephone in order to demonstrate important feedback loops and unintended consequences in the interaction of agricultural systems, other societal sectors, and the natural environment.
OUTCOMES: Directly coupling crop models into GCAM is not practical given that their high computational expense would reduce the nimbleness of GCAM as a tool, require a broad new array of input and configuration data to curate, and tie GCAM to a single crop model in spite of considerable uncertainty across current models. AgMIP and JGCRI have therefore turned to the development of crop response functions determined through crop model emulators, which offers a computationally-efficient option that is also capable of integrating multiple crop models and adapting to different farm systems. A peer-reviewed publication produced as an element of the AgMIP/JGCRI collaboration further describes the types of analysis possible in coupling agricultural responses into integrated assessment models (IAMs) like GCAM (Ruane et al., 2017).