Modeling the Dynamics of the Integrated Earth System and the Value of Global Ecosystem Services Using the Gumbo Model

The authors developed a global unified metamodel of the biosphere (GUMBO) to simulate the integrated earth system and assess the dynamics and values of ecosystem services. GUMBO is used to project different scenarios based on two variations concerning assumptions about key parameters in the model, arrayed against two variations of policy settings concerning the rates of investment across natural, social, human, and built capital. The model and scenarios explicitly include human population within human capital, and human population varies across the scenarios with defined interaction with other services and goods. Critically, human capital is a composite of human population and knowledge. Consequently, in GUMBO reduced human population does not automatically reduce human capital if knowledge is increased.

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