Keeping results from model-data comparison projects robust and relevant

Model data synthesis (MDS) projects provide us with the unique opportunity to pool our collective knowledge and identify our model’s strengths and weaknesses. MDS projects should be easily reproducible and flexible to expand to new models, metrics and data.

The groundbreaking work from the Free Air CO₂ Enrichment Experiment (FACE-MDS) project has paved the way for countless follow up research questions related to carbon cycling under climate change. In particular, while the analysis incorporated many ecological models, it did not account for model predictive uncertainty. The PEcAn project is re-evaluating these findings while developing a suit of benchmarking tools.