Highlight articles

This page features highlight articles from EGU's open access journals Biogeosciences, Geoscientific Model Development and SOIL. These articles of particular interest are selected by journal editors.

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All Biogeosciences (BG) Geoscientific Model Development (GMD) SOIL

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Scaling carbon fluxes from eddy covariance sites to globe: synthesis andevaluation of the FLUXCOM approach

• Biogeosciences
• DOI 10.5194/bg-17-1343-2020
• 26 March 2020

We test the approach of producing global gridded carbon fluxes based on combining machine learning with local measurements, remote sensing and climate data. We show that we can reproduce seasonal variations in carbon assimilated by plants via photosynthesis and in ecosystem net carbon balance. The ecosystem’s mean carbon balance and carbon flux trends require cautious interpretation. The analysis paves the way for future improvements of the data-driven assessment of carbon fluxes.

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Time-lapse monitoring of root water uptake using electrical resistivitytomography and mise-à-la-masse: a vineyard infiltration experiment

• SOIL
• DOI 10.5194/soil-6-95-2020
• 17 March 2020

The use of non-invasive geophysical imaging of root system processes is of increasing interest to study soil–plant interactions. The experiment focused on the behaviour of grapevine plants during a controlled infiltration experiment. The combination of the mise-à-la-masse (MALM) method, a variation of the classical electrical tomography map (ERT), for which the current is transmitted directly into the stem, holds the promise of being able to image root distribution.

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TRAPPIST-1 Habitable Atmosphere Intercomparison (THAI):motivations and protocol version 1.0

• Geoscientific Model Development
• DOI 10.5194/gmd-13-707-2020
• 3 March 2020

Atmospheric characterization of rocky exoplanets orbiting within the habitable zone of nearby M dwarf stars is around the corner with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), expected to be launch in 2021.
Global climate models (GCMs) are powerful tools to model exoplanet atmospheres and to predict their habitability. However, intrinsic differences between the models can lead to various predictions. This paper presents an experiment protocol to evaluate these differences.

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No nitrogen fixation in the Bay of Bengal?

• Biogeosciences
• DOI 10.5194/bg-17-851-2020
• 27 February 2020

Oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) are ocean areas severely depleted in oxygen as a result of physical, chemical, and biological processes. Biologically, organic material is produced in the sea surface and exported to deeper waters, where it respires. In the Bay of Bengal (BoB), an OMZ is present, but there are traces of oxygen left. Our study now suggests that this is because one key process, nitrogen fixation, is absent in the BoB, thus preventing primary production and consecutive respiration.

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Variations in soil chemical and physical properties explain basin-wideAmazon forest soil carbon concentrations

• SOIL
• DOI 10.5194/soil-6-53-2020
• 20 February 2020

Amazon soils hold as much carbon © as is contained in the vegetation. In this work we sampled soils across 8 different Amazonian countries to try to understand which soil properties control current Amazonian soil C concentrations. We confirm previous knowledge that highly developed soils hold C through clay content interactions but also show a previously unreported mechanism of soil C stabilization in the younger Amazonian soil types which hold C through aluminium organic matter interactions.

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Dimensions of marine phytoplankton diversity

• Biogeosciences
• DOI 10.5194/bg-17-609-2020
• 18 February 2020

Phytoplankton are an essential component of the marine food web and earth’s carbon cycle. We use observations, ecological theory and a unique trait-based ecosystem model to explain controls on patterns of marine phytoplankton biodiversity. We find that different dimensions of diversity (size classes, biogeochemical functional groups, thermal norms) are controlled by a disparate combination of mechanisms. This may explain why previous studies of phytoplankton diversity had conflicting results.

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Machine learning and soil sciences: a review aided by machine learning tools

• SOIL
• DOI 10.5194/soil-6-35-2020
• 13 February 2020

The application of machine learning (ML) has shown an accelerated adoption in soil sciences. It is a difficult task to manually review all papers on the application of ML. This paper aims to provide a review of the application of ML aided by topic modelling in order to find patterns in a large collection of publications. The objective is to gain insight into the applications and to discuss research gaps. We found 12 main topics and that ML methods usually perform better than traditional ones.

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An urban ecohydrological model to quantify the effect of vegetation on urban climate and hydrology (UT&C v1.0)

• Geoscientific Model Development
• DOI 10.5194/gmd-13-335-2020
• 6 February 2020

We developed a novel urban ecohydrological model (UT&C v1.0) that is able to account for the effects of different plant types on the urban climate and hydrology, as well as the effects of the urban environment on plant well-being and performance. UT&C performs well when compared against energy flux measurements in three cities in different climates (Singapore, Melbourne, Phoenix) and can be used to assess urban climate mitigation strategies that aim at increasing or changing urban green cover.

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Identification of new microbial functional standards for soil quality assessment

• SOIL
• DOI 10.5194/soil-6-17-2020
• 6 February 2020

Soil quality depends on the functioning of soil microbiota. Only a few standardized methods are available to assess this as well as adverse effects of human activities. So we need to identify promising additional methods that target soil microbial function. Discussed are (i) molecular methods using qPCR for new endpoints, e.g. in N and P cycling and greenhouse gas emissions, (ii) techniques for fungal enzyme activities, and (iii) field methods on carbon turnover such as the litter bag test.

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Effectiveness of landscape decontamination following the Fukushima nuclear accident: a review

• SOIL
• DOI 10.5194/soil-5-333-2019
• 30 December 2019

The Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident in March 2011 resulted in the contamination of Japanese landscapes with radioactive fallout. The objective of this review is to provide an overview of the decontamination strategies and their potential effectiveness in Japan. Overall, we believe it is important to synthesise the remediation lessons learnt following the FDNPP nuclear accident, which could be fundamental if radioactive fallout occurred somewhere on Earth in the future.

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