Name
What’s new in the CaMP-ground? CaMP-Per and CaMP-DOC will add permafrost and dissolved organic carbon dynamics to national peatland carbon accounting.
Description
The Canadian Model for Peatlands (CaMP) is a module within the Generic Carbon Budget Model (GCBM) framework for national carbon accounting in forests. CaMP and GCBM are built on the open-source Full Lands Integration Tool (FLINT) platform that was jointly developed by experts from Australia and the Canadian Forest Service and is distributed through the moja.global organisation (http://moja.global). The shift to FLINT allows finer spatial resolution/representation across broad spatial extents and transfers between different modules. This structural flexibility of GCBM allows for examination of finer scale ecosystem elements and interactions among elements within peatlands (e.g., permafrost features, ponds, streams), however modelling lateral flows among elements still poses a significant challenge. Within peatlands, permafrost carbon, dissolved organic carbon and the connection of terrestrial derived carbon to downstream aquatic fate are sensitive and highly uncertain components of the peatland carbon cycle. Although the modelling framework can now accommodate these added components much more work is still required to conceptualize how permafrost and dissolved organic carbon should be integrated into the model. Specifically, modelling permafrost C dynamics raises the need for increasing the temporal resolution of modelling to seasonal and including soil temperature dynamics. Modelling DOC dynamics will require an understanding of solubility and mobility of peatland carbon, its hydrologic connectivity and instream transformations. Initial conceptualizations of these processes are presented, and challenges and data gaps are identified. A case study area within the Hudson Plain Ecozone is proposed for development and application of these sub-modules of CaMP.