SPAM: Spruce and Moss Model for Boreal Forest Carbon Balance

BOREAS TE-19's Spruce and Moss Model (SPAM) simulates the daily carbon balance of a black spruce/moss ecosystem through four integrated components. It generates predictions for net ecosystem exchange, soil respiration, and net carbon accumulation by modeling tree and moss photosynthesis, respiration, and litter decomposition. The dataset includes the model's source code alongside sample input and output files in ASCII format.

Use Cases

• Simulating daily carbon fluxes in a black spruce/moss forest based on daily weather inputs.
• Analyzing contributions of tree vs. moss components to total ecosystem net productivity.
• Studying heterotrophic respiration from decomposed litter and humus.
• Validating or comparing terrestrial ecosystem models for boreal regions.

Strengths

• Cross-platform presence on datagov and nasa_earthdata signals established scientific use.
• Model structure is explicitly detailed with four distinct, interacting components.
• Includes both source code and example data, facilitating reproducibility.

Limitations

• Metadata conflicts: last updated dates differ significantly (1995 vs. 2026).
• No column names or row counts are provided, limiting understanding of data structure.
• Sample data size and format specifics are not detailed.

Provenance

Source

BOREAS TE-19 team, associated with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Collection Method

Model development and simulation.

Freshness

Last updated dates conflict: 1995-12-31 (nasa_earthdata) and 2026-03-13 (datagov).

Geography

Boreal forest ecosystem, specifically black spruce/moss stands.