The ESCOBA-biosphere Project : aims and examples of achievements. / Le projet ESCOBA-Biosphère : objectifs et exemples de résultats

This article is an attempt to synthesize the results of the first years of ESCOBA-Biosphere project. ESCOBA consists of three coordinated projects : ESCOBA-Atmosphere, ESCOBA-Terrestrial Biosphere and ESCOBA-Ocean, supported by the «Environment Programme» of the European Commission. The long-term objective of this project for research on the global carbon cycle is the quantitative description, modeling and forecasting of the interaction between the carbon pools on land and in the sea with the physical climate system. The objective of the terrestrial biosphere component is to forecast interactions between terrestrial biosphere and climate with respect to the carbon cycle. Different types of models have been developed for estimating C02 fluxes and carbon balance (sources and sinks). We briefly present these models as well as models dealing with chemical rock and soil erosion and biomass energy. Examples of results are presented. These examples show that models are able to describe the main contribution of land biosphere to the global carbon cycle. However, further improvement and validation of the models are needed in order to increase their ability to predict the evolution of carbon pools in the future. These improvements and validation should rely on a combination, over several years, of ground experiments, measurements of atmospheric concentration of trace gases and satellites data.