Terrestrial biosphere models can help identify physical processes that control carbon
dynamics, including land–atmosphere CO₂ fluxes, and have great potential to predict the terrestrial
ecosystem response to changing climate. The skill of models that provide continental-scale carbon flux
estimates, however, remains largely untested. This paper evaluates the performance of continental-scale...
Earth system processes exhibit complex patterns across time, as do the models that seek to replicate these processes. Model output may or may not be significantly related to observations at different times and on different frequencies. Conventional model diagnostics provide an aggregate view of model–data agreement, but usually do not...