A Diffusion-Based Uncertainty Quantification Method to Advance E3SM Land Model Calibration

Calibrating land surface models and accurately quantifying their uncertainty are crucial for improving the reliability of simulations of complex environmental processes. This, in turn, advances our predictive understanding of ecosystems and supports climate-resilient decision-making. Traditional calibration methods, however, face challenges of high computational costs and difficulties in accurately quantifying parameter uncertainties. To address these issues, we develop a diffusion-based uncertainty quantification (DBUQ) method. Unlike conventional generative diffusion methods, which are computationally expensive and memory-intensive, DBUQ innovates by formulating a parameterized generative model and approximates this model through supervised learning, which enables quick generation of parameter posterior samples to quantify its uncertainty. DBUQ is effective, efficient, and general-purpose, making it suitable for site-specific ecosystem model calibration and broadly applicable for parameter uncertainty quantification across various earth system models. In this study, we applied DBUQ to calibrate the Energy Exascale Earth System Model land model at the Missouri Ozark AmeriFlux forest site. Results indicated that DBUQ produced accurate parameter posterior distributions similar to those from Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling but with 30 times less computing time. This significant improvement in efficiency suggests that DBUQ can enable rapid, site-level model calibration at a global scale, enhancing our predictive understanding of climate impacts on terrestrial ecosystems.