Highlight articles

Reviews and syntheses: The mechanisms underlying carbon storage in soil

The 4 per 1000 initiative aims to restore carbon storage in soils to both mitigate climate change and contribute to food security. The French National Institute for Agricultural Research conducted a study to determine the carbon storage potential in French soils and associated costs. This paper is a part of that study. It reviews recent advances concerning the mechanisms that controls C stabilization in soils. Synthetic figures integrating new concepts should be of pedagogical interest.

The Making of the New European Wind Atlas – Part 2: Production and evaluation

This is the second of two papers that document the creation of the New European Wind Atlas (NEWA). The paper includes a detailed description of the technical and practical aspects that went into running the mesoscale simulations and the microscale downscaling for generating the climatology. A comprehensive evaluation of each component of the NEWA model chain is presented using observations from a large set of tall masts located all over Europe.

Factors controlling plankton community production, export flux, and particulate matter stoichiometry in the coastal upwelling system off Peru

The eastern boundary upwelling system off Peru is among Earth’s most productive ocean ecosystems, but the factors that control its functioning are poorly constrained. Here we used mesocosms, moored ~ 6 km offshore Peru, to investigate how processes in plankton communities drive key biogeochemical processes. We show that nutrient and light co-limitation keep productivity and export at a remarkably constant level while stoichiometry changes strongly with shifts in plankton community structure.

Impact of horizontal resolution on global ocean–sea ice model simulationsbased on the experimental protocols of the Ocean Model IntercomparisonProject phase 2 (OMIP-2)

This paper presents global comparisons of fundamental global climate variables from a suite of four pairs of matched low- and high-resolution ocean and sea ice simulations to assess the robustness of climate-relevant improvements in ocean simulations associated with moving from coarse (∼1°) to eddy-resolving (∼0.1°) horizontal resolutions. Despite significant improvements, greatly enhanced horizontal resolution does not deliver unambiguous bias reduction in all regions for all models.

Increase in ocean acidity variability and extremes under increasing atmospheric CO2

Ensemble simulations of an Earth system model reveal that ocean acidity extremes have increased in the past few decades and are projected to increase further in terms of frequency, intensity, duration, and volume extent. The increase is not only caused by the long-term ocean acidification due to the uptake of anthropogenic CO ₂ , but also due to changes in short-term variability. The increase in ocean acidity extremes may enhance the risk of detrimental impacts on marine organisms.

An improved mechanistic model for ammonia volatilization in Earth system models: Flow of Agricultural Nitrogen version 2 (FANv2)

Mostly emitted by the agricultural sector, ammonia has an important role in atmospheric chemistry. We developed a model to simulate how ammonia emissions respond to changes in temperature and soil moisture, and we evaluated agricultural ammonia emissions globally. The simulated emissions agree with earlier estimates over many regions, but the results highlight the variability of ammonia emissions and suggest that emissions in warm climates may be higher than previously thought.

The making of the New European Wind Atlas – Part 1: Model sensitivity

Wind energy resource assessment routinely uses numerical weather prediction model output. We describe the evaluation procedures used for picking the suitable blend of model setup and parameterizations for simulating European wind climatology with the WRF model. We assess the simulated winds against tall mast measurements using a suite of metrics, including the Earth Mover’s Distance, which diagnoses the performance of each ensemble member using the full wind speed and direction distribution.

Predicting the morphology of ice particles in deep convection using the super-droplet method:development and evaluation of SCALE-SDM 0.2.5-2.2.0, -2.2.1, and -2.2.2

Using the super-droplet method, we constructed a detailed numerical model of mixed-phase clouds based on kinetic description and subsequently demonstrated that a large-eddy simulation of a cumulonimbus which predicts ice particle morphology without assuming ice categories or mass–dimension relationships is possible. Our results strongly support the particle-based modeling methodology’s efficacy for simulating mixed-phase clouds.

Using constructed soils for green infrastructure – challenges andlimitations

SOIL
DOI 10.5194/soil-6-413-2020
29 September 2020

The goal of this study was to discuss current methods to create soils adapted for various green infrastructure (GI) designs. Investigating these new soils for several design categories of GI will provide technical information for management and design agencies. Moreover, these studies can serve as pioneer experiments to prevent recurring errors and, thus, provide improved plant growth practices. Results show that these constructed soils have a high potential to provide multiple soil functions.

HyLands 1.0: a hybrid landscape evolution model to simulate the impact of landslides and landslide-derived sediment on landscape evolution

Landslides shape the Earth’s surface and are a dominant source of terrestrial sediment. Rivers, then, act as conveyor belts evacuating landslide-produced sediment. Understanding the interaction among rivers and landslides is important to predict the Earth’s surface response to past and future environmental changes and for mitigating natural hazards. We develop HyLands, a new numerical model that provides a toolbox to explore how landslides and rivers interact over several timescales.

BG Biogeosciences Highlight articles

Highlight articles

Reviews and syntheses: The mechanisms underlying carbon storage in soil

The Making of the New European Wind Atlas – Part 2: Production and evaluation

Factors controlling plankton community production, export flux, and particulate matter stoichiometry in the coastal upwelling system off Peru

Impact of horizontal resolution on global ocean–sea ice model simulationsbased on the experimental protocols of the Ocean Model IntercomparisonProject phase 2 (OMIP-2)

Increase in ocean acidity variability and extremes under increasing atmospheric CO2

An improved mechanistic model for ammonia volatilization in Earth system models: Flow of Agricultural Nitrogen version 2 (FANv2)

The making of the New European Wind Atlas – Part 1: Model sensitivity

Predicting the morphology of ice particles in deep convection using the super-droplet method:development and evaluation of SCALE-SDM 0.2.5-2.2.0, -2.2.1, and -2.2.2

Using constructed soils for green infrastructure – challenges andlimitations

HyLands 1.0: a hybrid landscape evolution model to simulate the impact of landslides and landslide-derived sediment on landscape evolution

Information for

External links