New report underscores importance of microbes in climate change modeling
Climate models help scientists understand current environmental changes and make projections for Earth’s future, which can inform society's responses to climate change’s negative effects. Microbes will also influence climate change by driving biogeochemical cycles through the consumption and production of greenhouse gases. Now a new report underscores the importance of microbes in climate change modeling.
Microbes transform organic matter produced by plants and phytoplankton into nutrients that sustain new vegetation (including crops), but also release greenhouse gases as a result of their metabolism—they are thus fundamental for our own survival, while also playing a role in climate change” says Stefano Manzoni, senior lecturer at the Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University and co-author of the report.
The American Academy of Microbiology, an honorific leadership group and scientific think tank within the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), has released a new colloquium report, Microbes in Models: Steps for Integrating Microbes into Earth System Models for Understanding Climate Change, examining the challenges of explicitly including microbial processes into Earth system models to improve model projections.
Microbes responsible for the cycling of carbon and nutrients
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently reported “climate change impacts and risks are becoming increasingly complex and more difficult to manage.” With an estimated 3.3 to 3.6 billion people living in areas that are highly vulnerable to climate change, Earth system models help refine the complexity of climate change into more manageable terms to guide planning strategies and mitigation actions to tackle the pressing threat of climate change to humanity. Including microbial processes into Earth system models can improve model projections, because they are responsible for the cycling of carbon and nutrients.
However, fully understanding the feedback between climate change and microbes, and then including those processes in Earth system models, is a major challenge.
Microbial responses to environmental conditions are complex and it is difficult to predict how these responses vary as the climate changes, adds Stefano Manzoni.
The report outlines the top ten challenges that must be overcome to better incorporate microbial processes into Earth system models. Major research challenges include:
- Tradeoffs in model complexity.
- Identifying microbial functional groups.
- Temporal and spatial scale of microbes vs. global models.
- Data harmonization.
This report is the outcome of the colloquium convened by the Academy in December 2022. The event brought together more than 25 experts from both microbiology and climate modeling fields who provided multifaceted perspectives and insights. Besides Stefano Manzoni, also Swamini Khurana, a postdoctoral researcher at Physical Geography at Stockholm University, co-authored the report. This colloquium is part of the Academy’s 5-year Climate Change & Microbes Scientific Portfolio focused on increasing the scientific understanding about climate change and microbes, informing climate change policies and driving market innovations.
Link to the new report
Microbes in Models: Integrating Microbes into Earth System Models for Understanding Climate Change.
Learn more about the impact of microbes on climate change on the American Society for Microbiology’s Microbes and Climate Change resource page.
Read more about the American Society for Microbiology (ASM)
The ASM is one of the largest professional societies dedicated to the life sciences and is composed of 30,000 scientists and health practitioners. ASM's mission is to promote and advance the microbial sciences.
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Stefano Manzoni
Last updated: June 14, 2023
Source: Department of Physical Geography