– To develop a comprehensive, high-resolution framework for understanding land carbon dynamics across three contrasting regions – Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

– To attribute observed changes in terrestrial carbon fluxes and stocks to their underlying drivers by combining EO datasets and model ensembles at high spatial and temporal resolution

CMCC role
WP1 Scientific Requirements:CMCC participates in the WP1 to define the scientific requirement consolidation for the research and product development activities of the project.

WP2 Advancing High Spatial Resolution Estimations of Carbon Budget: CMCC participates in the WP2. In the Task 2.1 ‘Task 4.1 – High-resolution DGVM simulations’ CMCC will generate new CLM model  simulations across Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia to quantify regional land-atmosphere carbon fluxes and their drivers. In Task 4.2 – Regional carbon budgets will contribute to the  delivery of regionally disaggregated carbon budgets for Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia, combining process-based DGVM outputs with observation-constrained fluxes and emissions datasets.

WP7 (lead by CMCC) Scientific Coordination, Collaboration and Partnership: CMCC leads WP7, focusing on scientific coordination, collaboration, and partnership activities. The goal is to ensure that the THRAC3E project is closely aligned with major international initiatives and to strengthen global coordination across the carbon cycle science community.

Partnerships with Horizon Europe projects (NextGenCarbon and CONCERTO), as well as with NASA, GCP/RECCAP, and the ESA Carbon Science Cluster will be fostered; exchange of datasets, model outputs, scientific results, and capacity-building efforts among the different programmes will be supported; Training and supporting the next generation of carbon cycle scientists will be promoted.

The the exchange of EO produced in THRAC3E and model data between projects will be facilitated by a Global Carbon Cycle Forum, an interactive platform hosted by CMCC, and a Global Carbon Cycle Knowledge Inventory.

Activities
The structure of the THRAC3E project is designed to build a strong scientific foundation and ensure integration across all components, from understanding carbon cycle processes to developing operational tools for monitoring and forecasting.

The project begins with a comprehensive review of the current understanding of carbon cycle dynamics across the three target regions, emphasising inconsistencies between top-down and bottom-up estimates highlighted in recent global assessments (e.g., RECCAP2, GCB). This analysis provides a critical baseline for identifying regional and thematic knowledge gaps related to carbon fluxes, vegetation structure, disturbance processes, and model performance, thereby exposing key limitations in existing global systems.

Based on these findings, THRAC3E defines a set of consolidated scientific and technical requirements that guide the subsequent development of Earth observation (EO) datasets, benchmarking frameworks, high-resolution modeling approaches, and near-real-time data assimilation systems. This integrated structure ensures that all components of the project are scientifically coherent and aligned toward improving the accuracy, consistency, and timeliness of carbon cycle monitoring and prediction.

Expected results

• Develop novel EO products to estimate carbon fluxes and stocks.
• Maintain a carbon benchmarking dataset, combining new and existing EO data.
• Deliver high-resolution, EO-constrained carbon modelling across 3 target regions.
• Establish a low-latency system for regional carbon budgets.
• Strengthen the collaboration across Europe, NASA, and Global Carbon Project initiatives.

Partners

• University of Exeter (UNEXE), United Kingdom
• Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement Université Versailles St Quentin en Yvelines (LSCE-UVSQ), France
• Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (MPI-BGC)
• Dresden University of Technology (TUD)
• Fondazione Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (CMCC)
• Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet (SLU)