Strategic Plan

Definitions

In this document, the ORCHIDEE-code refers to the land surface code ORCHIDEE, developed primarily (but not only) by members of the IPSL and labeled by the CNRS (“Code Communautaire”). The code includes the globally coupled, the regionally coupled and off-line versions.

The ORCHIDEE-model refers to the ORCHIDEE-code as well as the running environment, model drivers, data files of boundary conditions, initial state and benchmark variables, and the evaluation and optimization code.

The ORCHIDEE-project is an international community focused on developing numerical simulations with ORCHIDEE, with interests in understanding of the physical, hydrological, biogeochemical and biophysical interactions between land, atmosphere, and ocean. The ORCHIDEE-project is the management board of the ORCHIDEE-model, responsible for the “Community Code” that was labeled by the CNRS (ORCHIDEE-Code).

The ORCHIDEE-group includes all persons working with the ORCHIDEE-model or contributing to the ORCHIDEE-model.

 

Values

Recognition of diversity. The ORCHIDEE-project is a community of interdisciplinary scientists rich in professional and personal backgrounds. Members’ contributions to the ORCHIDEE project are judged solely on their scientific and/or technical quality. We are all respected whatever gender, nationality, funding agency, age, and/or educational background.

Open-science. The ORCHIDEE-project aims at developing the land surface model ORCHIDEE to provide a community tool. Driven by the open science principles, reference versions of the ORCHIDEE-code are shared following open-access and open-source principles.

Reciprocity. Members of the ORCHIDEE-group whose research relies on prior model tools, benchmark data, evaluation tools, optimisation tools, or results of the ORCHIDEE-project are expected to contribute to the mission of the ORCHIDEE-project in proportion to the use made of it.

Scientific ethics. ORCHIDEE-model developments are guided by our collective scientific interests in order to gain understanding and produce new knowledge. Developments aim at being transparent following strict principles of scientific ethics.

Equity. Within the ORCHIDEE-project, we promote collaborations based on mutual trust and equity as we believe sharing knowledge, code developments, data, and recognition strongly contributes to personal well-being, group cohesion, and success.

Cooperative decision-making. The management of the ORCHIDEE-project follows democratic principles, prioritizing decisions based on a consensus. This calls for setting aside prejudice, the willingness to listen, and mutual respect among the members of the ORCHIDEE project.

Climate responsibility. As we believe researchers can play their part in the fight against the climate and biodiversity crises, we collectively aim to lower the environmental impacts of research and its related activities (e.g., traveling) performed within the ORCHIDEE project.

Implications for the ORCHIDEE-project functioning

  • These values serve as guidelines for decisions of the ORCHIDEE-project
  • Create space and reserve time to discuss differences in opinions on the group functioning and find solutions to address these differences.
  • Members of the ORCHIDEE-project volunteer to share responsibilities and tasks within the ORCHIDEE-project.

 

 

Vision

The ORCHIDEE-project aims to make the ORCHIDEE-model a globally recognized and leading LSM able to address scientific and societal challenges regarding the description and understanding of physical, hydrological, biogeochemical and biophysical processes and their interactions as well as major human-induced perturbations, underlying past, present and future climate change, and land-based mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Our vision relies on the following commitments :

  • Staying united as a single ORCHIDEE-project
  • Fostering collaboration with other labs and scientific communities (community tool)
  • Maintaining an ensemble of state-of-the-art ORCHIDEE-model applications: global, regional and plot scales ; coupled (global and regional climate models) and stand-alone modes.
  • Supporting climate (past-present-future) and process studies and further strengthening impact studies.
  • Balancing (reflected in the model code) between scientific developments among physics, hydrology, biogeochemistry, ecology.
  • Striving for a single code (trunk) with the smallest number of active and collaborative branches.

Implications for the ORCHIDEE-project functioning

  • To stay innovative, key objectives are: (1) comprehensive and regular evaluations of the model, (2) a continuous effort in integrating existing developments (branches) into the trunk, and (3) a continuous effort to start new developments from the trunk.
  • To avoid internal competition we have regular and dedicated meetings to inform the ORCHIDEE-group of each other’s planned developments.
  • To work toward a single but versatile ORCHIDEE-code: pushing for modularity based on flags and regularly discussing the scientific developments that should be merged into the trunk.
  • Sharing technical & support work across the ORCHIDEE-project (i.e., rights and duty for all users).

Mission

The ORCHIDEE-project coordinates model developments serving the ORCHIDEE-group through:

  • developing new features, compatible with both off-line and coupled functionality of the IPSL-CM and RegIPSL atmospheric models
  • Developing and testing new processes representations in branch versions with the ultimate aim to be integrated into the main version of ORCHIDEE if proven successful/relevant

Our developments aim at :

  • Studying / representing all relevant natural and managed terrestrial land (among others, forests, crops, grass, deserts, glaciers, urban)
  • Representing physical and biological processes with developments being done at the physically relevant temporal – from a few minutes to decades – and spatial – from the plot to regional and global – scales, while preserving the ability to run the model globally for centuries under past & future environmental and societal conditions.

The ORCHIDEE-project coordinates the release of stable and well-documented versions of the ORCHIDEE-model that will be made open access.
Stable : Shared ORCHIDEE-model versions

    • have been evaluated and calibrated using a few internationally accepted forcing datasets
    • are maintained with respect to the evolution of computing architecture at least 4 computing centers : IPSL and LSCE computing systems, TGCC and IDRIS.

Documented :

  • For each shared ORCHIDEE-model version we aim to provide:
    • Detailed meta-data information about the code and its running environment.
    • Input data needed for or a set of pre-defined resolutions.
    • Documentation about the pre-defined/default configuration setups as well as the ORCHIDEE-code.
    • Evaluation of the new developments’ impact on the main energy, water, carbon and other nutrients budgets.
    • A list of model options with instructions for defining physically-relevant and technically-constrained combinations of processes in complement to model diagnostic messages in the code.
  • For each tagged version of the model we provide :
    • Reference simulation outputs along with key performance diagnostics analysis

The ORCHIDEE-project is committed to :

  • Create and safeguard a respectful and stimulating working environment for the ORCHIDEE-group.
  • Promote the ORCHIDEE-project values in science.
  • Maintain regular communication and good relationships
    • Within the ORCHIDEE-group (especially with respect to the development of branches of the ORCHIDEE-code).
    • With the other IPSL members and all initiatives around the ORCHIDEE-model.
    • With research federations, funding institutes, data providers and other stakeholders.

Implications for the ORCHIDEE-project functioning

  • Organize regular presentations of branch functionalities and objectives during ORCHIDEE-group meetings (ORCHIDEE – DEV meeting).
  • Organize annual “merge” meetings to decide and plan on branch merging ⇒ set up guidelines describing criteria for branch merging.
  • Improve the description of the ORCHIDEE-model versions supported by the ORCHIDEE-project (including a description of purposes and limitations and model parameter sets with warnings on combinations of resolution/processes).
  • Have regular discussions on what to add to the ORCHIDEE-model evaluation procedure.

Team logistics

ORCHIDEE team meetings

The ORCHIDEE project group has defined a series of regular meetings to achieve the objectives of the project group and to maintain a regular flow of information between the core “ORCHIDEE project group” and the ensemble of developers and users (non-permanent scientists and engineers). The idea is to have regular meetings each week and to alternate between:

    • Technical meetings: Restricted to the steering committee and few other active developers. These concern management of the code, scientific and technical discussions concerning the implementation of the ORCHIDEE project decisions, and follow-ups of engineering work.
    • Project meetings: Restricted to the steering committee. The main objectives are general decision making and coordination of the model developement.
    • Developer/user meeting: Open to all. The main objectives are: 1) to inform all developers/users of the code about the ongoing ORCHIDEE developments and branch integration into the main version, and 2) to present and discuss a specific ongoing development (scientific or technical).

Management of the code:

In order to increase the efficiency of the code maintenance, development and management, we have grouped the different modules and routines by processes/technical aspects, following the diagram below. For each process or technical aspect, one person from the steering committee is responsible for managing all technical and scientific problems/bugs that arise (usually managed through a “ticket” system) and to report to the steering committee about the evolution of that part of the code.

How to contact us ?

Three mailing lists are used in order to facilitate the flow of information at different levels.

    • ORCHIDEE projet (orchidee-projet@listes.ipsl.fr): This list is restricted to the steering committee. It may be used by external people for a general request about the ORCHIDEE project
    • ORCHIDEE DEV (orchidee-dev@listes.ipsl.fr): To facilitate the exchange of technical information among all users/developers of the ORCHIDEE model, in paticular to circulate information on new technical improvements/developments, to report problems/bugs and to notify about ‘commits’ made by the ORCHIDEE team. You can subscribe at https://listes.ipsl.fr/sympa/info/orchidee-dev
    • ORCHIDEE HELP (orchidee-help@listes.ipsl.fr): For developers or users of the ORCHIDEE model to ask specific questions (mainly technical) linked to the use of the model or to report problems/bugs. This mailing list should be used only as a last resort.

The ORCHIDEE team

Objectives of the team

The ORCHIDEE project is dedicated to the development of the global Land Surface Model (LSM) ORCHIDEE and its use for a wide range of applications (from land surface processes to climate studies). The project is centered around a project team (referred to as the “ORCHIDEE project group”) whose main objective is to coordinate the strategy for the model development, maintenance, validation, distribution, and valorisation.

The project team consists of a “steering committee” including around 15 scientists (see figure below) who meet every two months to discuss and coordinate all model developments, validation and valorisation.

Project leader: Philippe Peylin

Steering committee :

NameInstituteMain interests
Barichivich JonathanIPSL/LSCEParameterisation and a range of applications of ORCHIDEE-CN-CAN in tropical and temperate South America
Bastrikov VladislavScience Partners- data assimilation with ORCHIDEE
- technical support
Cadule PatriciaIPSLCoupled mode management
Fire module (SPITFIRE)
Ciais PhilippeIPSL/LSCEContributions to overall direction and developments
Chéruy FrédériqueIPSL/LMDContributions to coupling with LMDZ
Ducharne AgnèsSisyphe/UPMCContributions to / management of hydrology and routing
Ghattas JosefineIPSLCode maintancence
Guenet BertrandIPSL/ENS-LGSoil carbon dynamic and biogeochemistry
Goll DanielLSCENutrients (N,P) cycles and their interactions with cycles of carbon and water, weathering,
Lathière JulietteIPSL/LSCEManagement of coupling with chemistry
Luyssaert SebastiaanVU AmsterdamForest management, forest disturbances, tree growth and tree mortality modules
Maignan FabienneIPSL/LSCEPhotosynthesis and related processes (fluorescence, photoprotection, radiative transfer)
Phenology
Marie GuillaumeLSCE/Science PartnerForest management and forest disturbances
Ottlé CatherineIPSL/LSCEContributions to snow and permafrost developments
Peylin PhilippeIPSL/LSCEProject Management / General contributions
Adjoint model
Polcher JanIPSL/LMDContributions to / management of hydrology, routing and energy balance
Salmon ElodieLSCEMethane emissions from peatland in high latitude region
Valade AudeCIRADInclusion of traits variability in ORCHIDEE-CN-CAN for application to response of forests to droughts.
Viovy NicolasIPSL/LSCEGeneral contributions to Stomate and the DGVM
Nitrogen cycle integration / Forest management module
Vuichard NicolasIPSL/LSCEIntegration of biogeochemical developments
Assessment of impacts
Research: Impact of management of agro- systems
Xiaoni Wang-FaivreLSCE/IPSLcode development and maintenance in ORCHIDEE, evaluation tool development and data processing, emulation applications to ORCHIDEE by using machine learning
Yue ChaoLSCE1. Historical and future land-use change
2. Fires in the earth system
3. Carbon and Hydrological impacts on semi-arid regions.

 

 

Role & responsabilities of the team

The ORCHIDEE project group:

Makes decisions about

    • the developments that will integrate into the standard version of ORCHIDEE
    • the order in which these developments will be included

Coordinates:

    • Recruitment of engineers dedicated to model developments
    • Planning of the different engineers resources
    • Shared funding to hire some of the engineers
    • Interactions with the different laboratories and institutes that are involved in the
      development of the model, and in particular the “pôle de modélisation” of IPSL institute.

Guarantees:

    • Regular deliveries of tagged versions of the model and their robustness at several computer centers (CCRT, IDRIS, LSCE)
    • Scientific evaluation
    • Updates of code documentation within these tagged versions
    • Production, archiving and access to reference simulations (both uncoupled and coupled to the GCM)
    • Training to new users through regular courses
    • User support through several tools (wiki site, help list via email, etc)

Communicates to all partners (developers, users, partner institutes) information on :

    • developement planning and their integration into the main code
    • ongoing and forthcoming research projects that use ORCHIDEE
    • mid-term strategy plans by annually updating this document.

Organises:

    • an annual general assembly
    • a project review with the partner institute managements
      (LMD and LSCE laboratories, “pôle de modélisation” of IPSL)

HOW to contact us ?

See contact section

Main users and developers

NameInstituteMain interestEmail
Bacour CédricLSCE- Data assimilation
- Fluorescence
- Radiative transfer
- Remote sensing
cedric.bacour at noveltis.fr
Barichivich JonathanIPSL/LSCEParameterisation and a range of applications of ORCHIDEE-CN-CAN in tropical and temperate South Americajonathan.barichivich at lsce.ipsl.fr
Bastrikov VladislavScience Partners- data assimilation with ORCHIDEE
- technical support
vladislav.bastrikov at science-partners.com
Bowring SimonLSCEHigh latitudes; terrestrial and marine ecology.
ORCHIDEE-MICT/ORCHIDEE-SOM/-LEAK
simon.bowring at lsce.ipsl.fr
simon_bowring at hotmail.com
Cadule PatriciaIPSLCoupled mode management
Fire module (SPITFIRE)
patricia.cadule at lsce.ipsl.fr
Céline Gommet ULB LSCEDOC in European riversceline.gommet at ulb.ac.be
Chang JinfengLSCEGrassland management, Carbon-nutrient interactionsjinfengchang at gmail.com
Chen Yi-YingAcademia Sinicia, TaiwanEffects of typhoons on c-budget, and regional land cover changesyiyingchen at gate.sinica.edu.tw
Chéruy FrédériqueIPSL/LMDContributions to coupling with LMDZcheruy at lmd.jussieu.fr
Ciais PhilippeIPSL/LSCEContributions to overall direction and developmentsphilippe.ciais at lsce.ipsl.fr
Cuynet AmélieIPSL/LSCEContributions to snow and soil physical processesamelie.cuynet at lsce.ipsl.fr
Dan ZhuLSCEHigh latitudes / large mammalsdan.zhu at lsce.ipsl.fr
Delphine TardifIPGPInteraction vegetation - climat - paléogéographie - paramètres orbitaux - pCO2 au Cénozoique (utilisation de IPSLCM5A2).
Végétation dynamique et semi dynamique
tardif at ipgp.fr
Ducharne AgnèsSisyphe/UPMCContributions to / management of hydrology and routingAgnes.Ducharne at upmc.fr
Fita Lluís ,Sörensson Anna, Schrapffer Anthony
(with J. Polcher)
Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera
(CIMA) Argentina
River flow, floods, land-surface water bodies-atmosphere interaction in South Americalluis.fita at cima.fcen.uba.ar
Ghattas JosefineIPSLCode maintancencejosefine.ghattas at ipsl.jussieu.fr
Goll DanielLSCENutrients (N,P) cycles and their interactions with cycles of carbon and water, weathering,
daniel.goll at lsce.ipsl.fr
Guenet BertrandLG-ENS/IPSLSoil carbon dynamic and biogeochemistryguenet at biotite.ens.fr
Haicheng ZhangLSCESOC decomposition - optimality theoryhaicheng.zhang at lsce.ipsl.fr
Jeong JinaVU AmsterdamStorm, drought and bark beetle interactionsj.jeong at vu.nl
Katrin FleischerVU AmsterdamPhosphorous cycle, plant traits and tropical forestkfleischer at bgc-jena.mpg.de
Kialka FilipLG-ENS/IPSLHow change in porosity affects soil hydrlogykialka at geologie.ens.fr
Lansøb Anne SofieLSCECarbon cycle, Forest management, ORCHIDEE-CN-CANanne-sofie.lanso at lsce.ipsl.fr
Lathière JulietteIPSL/LSCEManagement of coupling with chemistryjuliette.lathiere at lsce.ipsl.fr
Luyssaert SebastiaanVU AmsterdamForest management, forest disturbances, tree growth and tree mortality moduless.luyssaert at vu.nl
MacBean NatashaUniversity of Arizona / Indiana University (from August 2018)Carbon cycle, phenology/vegetation trends, data assimilation, semi-arid ecosystems.nlmacbean at gmail.com ; nmacbean at iu.edu
Maignan FabienneIPSL/LSCEPhotosynthesis and related processes (fluorescence, photoprotection, radiative transfer)
Phenology
fabienne.maignan at lsce.ipsl.fr
Marie GuillaumeLSCE/Science PartnerForest management and forest disturbancesguillaume.marie at lsce.ipsl.fr
Marine RemaudVU AmsterdamStorm, drought and bark beetle interactionsm.a.c.c.remaud at vu.nl
Marko KvavikINRACrop limitations by Pmarko.kvakic at inra.fr
Naudts KimVU AmsterdamEcohydrology and plant physiologyk.naudts at vu.nl
Omar FloresVU AmsterdamSoil trophic food webo.flores.rodriguez at vu.nl
Ottlé CatherineIPSL/LSCEContributions /management of thermal and hydrological developments, evaluation and calibration (snow, inland water, soil-vegetation-atmopshere transfers, ...)catherine.ottle at lsce.ipsl.fr
Peng ShushiPKUCH4 in wetlands / attributionspeng at pku.edu.cn
Peylin PhilippeIPSL/LSCEProject Management / Carbon and water cycle contributions / Data assimilationphilippe.peylin at lsce.ipsl.fr
Polcher JanIPSL/LMDContributions to / management of hydrology, routing and energy balancejan.polcher at lmd.jussieu.fr
Qiu ChunjingLSCEModeling of peatlands hydrology, peatlands C decomposition and accumulation, peatlands area extentschunjing.qiu at lsce.ipsl.fr
Raoult Nina LSCEData assimilation with ORC, currently focusing on soil moisture and will link to the carbon cycle.
nina.raoult at lsce.ipsl.fr
Ronny LauerwaldULBRiver carbon and nutrient transportR.Lauerwald at exeter.ac.uk
Salmon ElodieLSCEMethane emissions from peatland in high latitude region
elodie.salmon at lsce.ipsl.fr
Valade AudeCIRADInclusion of traits variability in ORCHIDEE-CN-CAN for application to response of forests to droughts.aude.valade at cirad.fr
Viovy NicolasIPSL/LSCEGeneral contributions to Stomate and the DGVM
Nitrogen cycle integration / Forest management module
nicolas.viovy at lsce.ipsl.fr
Vuichard NicolasIPSL/LSCEIntegration of biogeochemical developments
Assessment of impacts
Research: Impact of management of agro- systems
nicolas.vuichard at lsce.ipsl.fr
Xiaoni Wang-FaivreLSCE/IPSLcode development and maintenance in ORCHIDEE, evaluation tool development and data processing, emulation applications to ORCHIDEE by using machine learningxiaoni.wang at lsce.ipsl.fr
Yan SunLSCEPhosphorus emerging limitations yan.sun at lsce.ipsl.fr
Ye HuangLSCESOCye.huang at lsce.ipsl.fr
Yuan ZhangLSCE LMDDiffuse light effects / aerosols effects on vegetation-atmosphere interactionsYuan.Zhang at lmd.jussieu.fr
Yuanyuan HuangLSCEModel calibrationyuanyuan.huang at lsce.ipsl.fr
Yue ChaoLSCE1. Historical and future land-use change
2. Fires in the earth system
3. Carbon and Hydrological impacts on semi-arid regions.
chaoyuejoy at gmail.com
Zhou XudongLMDHuman processes in ORCHIDEE’s water cyclejan.polcher at lmd.jussieu.fr

About the ORCHIDEE project team

The Orchidee project was established across several laboratories and it is dedicated to development of the global Land Surface Model (LSM) ORCHIDEE and its use for a wide range of applications from land surface processes to climate studies. The different steps of the ORCHIDEE model/project genesis are summarized in the figure below.

The genesis of ORCHIDEE

During the 1980s, the development at the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (LMD) of a global General Circulation Model (GCM) stimulated the development of a specific land surface model to calculate the energy and water balance of terrestrial ecosystems (Laval et al., 1981). In the early 1990s, the model was substantially refined with a description of the earth surface categorized into several biomes called PFTs (Plant Functional Types) which led to a version, named SECHIBA (Ducoudré et al., 1993). In the late 1990s and in the early 2000s, the Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (DGVM) ORCHIDEE (Krinner et al., 2005) was created, based on the coupling of SECHIBA with i) a carbon module, STOMATE describing the flow of carbon within the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum and ii) a dynamic vegetation module, inherited from the LPJ model, describing the evolution of natural vegetation with climate. Such effort was conducted between the LMD and LSCE laboratories.

Figure: History of the ORCHIDEE model development and of the project team development.
about the ORCHIDEE project team

A team to follow and coordinate the model developements

After the mid 2000s, there has been an exponential increase in the number of users and developers in several laboratories: within IPSL (LSCE, LMD, LOCEAN), outside IPSL (SISYPHE in Paris and LGGE in Grenoble) and internationally (PKU university in China, UCLM Toledo in Spain, University of Antwerp (UA) and UGhent university in Belgium). The increase of users and associated projects was accompanied by a large number of new developments. In this context, the need to merge the new model “branches” into a common version became crucial especially to address integrated scientific questions, but it also became highly challenging. The main ORCHIDEE developers/users have thus decided to reinforce the previous organisation (carried by the IPSL) and to operate as a more structured project across laboratories. This process that started at LSCE was rapidly enlarged to the IPSL and few other national and international laboratories (listed above) with the objectives to formalize communication, developments, planning and decision making around the model. The reorganisation into a new project structure has been adapted to the size and ambitions of the group. This web site summarize the foundation of this recent organization.