Dr Andrew Jarvis

E-mail a.jarvis@lancaster.ac.uk

Telephone +44 (0)1524 5-93280


CONTROL THEORY AND CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION

Climate change mitigation strategies rely on predictions from a range of models in order to inform appropriate future courses of action. However, as we all know, we are uncertain about what the future holds and we will probably have to correct any chosen course of action as new information becomes available. We therefore need frameworks that are both predictive and corrective. We have been exploring how feedback control could provide a useful framework for analyzing the hybridization between the predictive and corrective steps of candidate mitigation strategies. If you are interested in this particular topic then you may want to read the EMS paper below or alternatively Dave Leedal's PhD Thesis. Dave has also prepared an emulation in Excel called (EMERGE) which you may want to look at. This work relies in part on the development and deployment of simple climate models and we have been working recently on the specification and properties of these models.

Related Publications

Jarvis AJ and Li S. Ocean circulation and climate change timescales inferred from a simple model. Journal of Climate (submitted) (pdf)

Li S and Jarvis AJ. The mean surface temperature dynamics of an A-OGCM: The HadCM3 4xCO2 forcing experiment revisited. Climate Dynamics (submitted) (pdf)

Jarvis AJ, Leedal DT, Taylor CJ and Young PC. Stabilizing global mean surface temperature: A feedback control perspective. Environmental Modelling and Software (in press) (pdf)

Li S, Jarvis AJ and Leedal DT. Are response function representations of the global carbon cycle ever interpretable? Tellus Series B (in press) (pdf)

Jarvis AJ, Young PC, Leedal DT and Chotai A. (2008) A Sequential CO2 Emissions Strategy Based on Optimal Control of Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations. Climatic Change, DOI 10.1007/s10584-007-9298-4 (pdf)

Jarvis AJ, Young PC, Leedal DT and Chotai AC. (2005) An Incremental CO2 Emissions Strategy Based on a State Variable Feedback Control Design. International Symposium on Stabilisation of Greenhouse Gases, Exeter, UK.


PLANT FUNCTION AND SURFACE-ATMOSPHERE EXCHANGE

Plants interact with their environment in order to capture resources (nutrients, water, CO2, light). The capture of these resources and the subsequent investment of the products of this acquisition defines an important aspect of the strategy of plants and plant communities. Understanding these strategies in relation to the availability of resources helps us predict how plant communities will adapt as their environment changes. We have been developing numerical techniques which attempt to resolve aspects of this behaviour from both leaf level and field scale observations.

Dr. Kaniska Mallick and I are just starting a NERC funded project investigating how to partition field scale observations of evaporation into wet surface and plant-sourced water loss. We will be using this information in conjunction with simultaneous observations of CO2 uptake to attempt to resolve how plant communities invest the resources they acquire when their environment is unpredictable.

Related Publications

Stauch VJ, Jarvis AJ and Schulz K. (2008) Estimation of Net Carbon Exchange Using Eddy Covariance CO2 Flux Observations and a Stochastic Model. J. Geophys. Res. 113, D03101 (pdf)

Stauch VJ and Jarvis AJ. (2006) A Semi-Parametric Gap-Filling Model for Eddy Covariance CO2-Flux Time Series Data. Global Change Biology, 12 (9), 1707-1716. (pdf)

Schulz K and Jarvis AJ (2004). Environmental and biological controls on the seasonal variations in latent heat fluxes derived from flux data for three forest sites. Water Resources Research. 40 (12): art. no. W12501 (pdf)

Jarvis AJ, Stauch VJ, Schulz K, Young PC (2004) The seasonal temperature dependency of photosynthesis and respiration in two deciduous forests. Global Change Biology 10 (6): 939-950. (pdf)

Schulz K, Jarvis AJ, Beven K, and Soegaard H (2001) The predictive uncertainty of land surface fluxes in response to increasing ambient CO2. Journal of Climate. 14(12), 2551-2562 (pdf)

Jarvis AJ, Young PC, Taylor CJ and Davies WJ (1999). An analysis of the dynamic response of stomatal conductance to a reduction in humidity over leaves of Cedrella odorata. Plant Cell and Environment, 22, 913-924.

Jarvis AJ, Mansfield TA and Davies WJ (1999). Stomatal behaviour, photosynthesis and transpiration under rising CO2. Plant Cell and Environment, 22, 639-648.

Jarvis AJ and Davies WJ (1998). The coupled response of stomatal conductance to photosynthesis and transpiration. Journal of Experimental Botany, 49, 399-406

Jarvis AJ and Davies WJ (1997). Whole plant ABA flux and the regulation of water loss in Cedrella odorata. Plant Cell and Environment, 20, 521-527.





Andrew Jarvis

LANCASTER ENVIRONMENT CENTRE - 2008