We present the latest version of the ISBA‐CTRIP land surface system, focusing on the representation of the land carbon cycle. We review the main improvements since the year 2012, mainly added modules for wild fires, carbon leaching through soil and transport of dissolved organic carbon to the ocean, and land cover changes but also improved representation of photosynthesis, respiration, and plant functional types. This version of ISBA‐CTRIP is fully described in terms of land carbon pools, fluxes, and their interactions. Results are compared with the previous version in an off‐line mode forced by observed climate during the historical time period. The two simulations are presented to demonstrate the model performance compared to an ensemble of observed and observation‐derived data sets for gross and net primary productivity, heterotrophic and autotrophic respiration, above and below ground biomass, litter, and soil carbon pools. New developments specific to the new version such as burned area, fire emissions, carbon leaching, and land cover are also validated against observations. The results show clearly that the latest version of ISBA‐CTRIP outperforms the former version and reproduces generally well the observed mean spatial patterns in carbon pools and fluxes, as well as the seasonal cycle of leaf area index. The trends of the global fluxes over the last 50?years agree with other global models and with available estimates. This comparison gives us confidence that the model represents the main processes involved in the terrestrial carbon cycle and can be used to explore future global change projections. Plain Language Summary The land surface exchanges energy, water, and carbon with the atmosphere and partly controls the atmospheric CO2 concentration. It is therefore crucial to represent correctly the carbon cycle on land in models designed to be used in Earth System Models. We present here the improvements made to the representation of the land carbon cycle by the land surface system ISBA‐CTRIP. We improved the representation of several processes using published data, and we added processes that were not represented. The new version of the model performs better than the previous one at representing the carbon fluxes and pools, when compared to a series of observation data sets. This evaluation suggests that we can use ISBA‐CTRIP to explore the changing climate and carbon cycle.
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