From climate change to weather conditions: linking ecotrons to an ecosystem measurement tower to better simulate the effect of climate change on ecosystem functioning

Abstract

Ecotrons are large scale research infrastructures offering a compromise between high level of control and recording ecosystem processes at a relevant spatial scale. Since ecosystem functioning is strongly influenced by climatic variables, simulating weather conditions and stochasticity accurately is crucial to ensure that results are not disconnected from reality. Here, we describe how to use input from an ICOS ecosystem tower to simulate in real time weather conditions in an ecotron facility. The ecotrons are filled with lysimeters containing dry heathland ecosystem. The parameters are controlled are not only atmospheric (temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, CO2 concentration) but also belowground (temperature and water tension). We illustrate the accuracy at which our ecotron-ICOS tower design can reproduce these parameters. We also describe how we plan to alter the ICOS input for two climate-change experiments.