THE ROTHAMSTED SOIL-CARBON TURNOVER MODEL - DISCRETE TO CONTINUOUS FORM

This paper examines the Rothamsted soil-carbon turnover model. This mo del and other soil carbon turnover models are increasingly being used in climate change and land use studies. The formulation of this model is as a discrete sums-of-exponentials. This discrete form may be conve rted to a continuous form which can be shown to be an asymptotic appro ximation of a simple linear first-order system of differential equatio ns where the exponential decay rate constants in the sums-of-exponenti als form approximate the first-order rate transfer coefficients in the differential equation form. There are many standard analytical result s that can be obtained from this linear system of differential equatio ns that could prove to be very useful in modelling soil-carbon turnove r.