bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Future fires in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) phase 6
Authors: Lasslop Gitta , Hantson Stijn , Brovkin Victor , Li Fang , Lawrence David , Rabin Sam , Shevliakova Elena
Published: March 2020

Fires are an important component in Earth system models (ESMs), they impact vegetation carbon storage, vegetation distribution, atmospheric composition and cloud formation. The representation of fires in ESMs contributing to CMIP phase 5 was still very simplified. Several Earth system models updated their representation of fires in the meantime. Using the latest simulations of CMIP6 we investigate how fire regimes change in the future for different scenarios and how land use, climate and atmospheric CO2 concentration contribute to the fire regimes changes. We quantify changes in fire danger, burned area and carbon emissions on an annual and seasonal basis. Factorial model simulations allow to quantify the influence of land use, climate and atmospheric CO2 on fire regimes.

We complement the information on fire regime change supplied by ESMs that include a fire module with a statistical modelling approach for burned area. This will use information from simulated changes in climate, vegetation and socioeconomic changes (population density and land use) provided for a set of different future scenarios. This allows the integration of information provided by global satellite products on burned area with the process-based simulations of climate and vegetation changes and information from socioeconomic scenarios.

 
NoiseCap: a citizen science experiment to raise awareness of noise environments with cell phones
Authors: Bigagli Lorenzo , Salzano Roberto , Olivieri Massimiliano
Published: March 2020

The NoiseCap experiment was an unfunded follow up of the Energic-OD project (European NEtwork for Redistributing Geospatial Information to user Communities - Open Data), which had started in October 2014 and ended in September 2017 and had been supported by the European Union under the Competitiveness and Innovation framework Programme (CIP).

The project built on one of Energic-OD outcomes, the NoiseCapture Android app, allowing cell phone users to measure their outdoor noise environment and optionally share their measurements on the free and open-source Noise-Planet platform and scientific toolset for environmental noise assessment. Each noise measurement is annotated with its location and can be displayed in interactive noise maps, within the app and on the Noise-Planet portal.

In NoiseCap, we were primarily interested in extending the NoiseCapture use case to indoor settings, hence we chose to focus on air traffic noise (namely landing events), which is well characterized and identifiable by citizens living in airport surroundings. Our experiment targeted the neighbourhood of the airport of Florence, Italy, but may be easily reproduced in any similar community. We were also interested in assessing the reliability of commercial cell phone in measuring indoor noise, by comparing collected data with appropriate reference measurement.

User participation in NoiseCap was on a completely voluntary basis, e.g. volunteers were free to choose whether to measure any given landing event, during the period of the campaign, which lasted for several weeks. Participants were mainly enrolled through the local network of environmental activists and were asked to follow a simple protocol, to ensure their individual measurements would be taken in nearly identical conditions, in particular from the same spot, specified by the volunteer during registration.

From a technological viewpoint, the implementation of NoiseCap has highlighted a substantial lack of open Event-Driven standards and solutions in contemporary Spatial Data Infrastructures, e.g. for processing spatial time series, identify events and apply event pattern matching. We have developed a customized architectural approach, including a notification service based on raw ADS-B Mode S data processing and a proprietary solution (Telegram-based push messages), to alert the volunteers with individual time-before-overflight estimations.

In conclusion, the NoiseCap experiment has provided useful insights on Event-Driven Architectures, as well as on the application of citizen science to sensitive issues in local communities.
Can earthquakes lead to delayed avalanche release ?
Authors: Puzrin Alexander M. , Faug Thierry , Einav Itai
Published: March 2020

Strong earthquakes often trigger snow avalanches, sometimes with observable delays. Most existing models assume that snow slab avalanches happen simulatenously during or immediatly after their triggering. Therefore, they cannot explain the plausibility of delayed avalanches that are released minutes to hours after a quake. Resolving this shortcoming is critical for improving safety, as emphasized by deadly delayed avalanches in Western Himalaya and, most recently, by the devastating Rigopiano avalanche in Italy’s Abruzzo region, which occurred more than 30 min after the last in a series of major quakes on 18 January 2017. This work establishes the basic mechanism of delays in earthquake-induced avalanche release using a novel analytical model that yields failure scenarios consistent with the Western Himalaya and Rigopiano cases. The mechanism arises from the interplay between creep, strain softening and strain-rate sensitivity of snow, which drive the growth of a basal shear fracture. Our results imply that earthquake-delayed avalanches are rare, yet possible, and could lead to significant damade, especially in long milder slopes. The generality of the model formulation opens a new avenue for exploring other questions related to natural slab avalanche release.
Hydrological effect of vegetation against landslides
Authors: Gonzalez Ollauri Alejandro
Published: March 2020

The hydrological effect of vegetation against landslides has rarely been quantified and its integration into slope stability methods remains a challenge. To adequately address this knowledge gap, the effect of vegetation against landslides should be assessed under both wet (i.e. with precipitation) and dry (i.e. without precipitation) conditions. Furthermore, the establishment of novel frameworks that integrate hydrological processes occurring at the plant-soil-atmosphere interface is paramount. This goals of this presentation are (i) to critically evaluate the hydrological effect of vegetation against landslides by showcasing novel results from field and modelling experiments, and (ii) to highlight relevant plant traits regulating the hydrological cycle at the plant-soil-atmosphere interface in a context of landslide occurence.
Filtering of large wood in torrential catchments
Authors: Beck Markus , Hübl Johannes
Published: March 2020

Large wood can cause serious damage on existing structures like bridges, dams and flood protection measures. Therefore, large wood recruitment in rivers became an important topic concerning risk mitigation and flood protection both in mountainous areas and in lowland rivers all around the world. However, former mitigation constructions like check dams, often don’t consider the impact of single wood pieces or the effect of a dense wood accumulation on the stability and function. To avoid potential negative effects, several strategies have been established. An often-used strategy is to filter out the wood pieces before a critical river section or structure is affected.

 

In the year 2002, a flood event in the Naarn river in Perg, Austria, mobilized and transported large wood pieces along the river path and caused damage at a bridge in the downstream settlement area. The mobilization was mainly caused by side erosion along the wooded hillslopes connected to the river system. To avoid this problem in future, a protection measure to filter out large wood is planned in the above situated river section. To estimate the effect of the planned measure, different scenarios will be analyzed, based on a small scale hydraulic physical model with compliance to Froude scaling. The research focus lies on the effectivity of the measure with a discharge ranging from a frequent (one-year recurrence) discharge event (HQ1) to a design event of a 100 year recurrence discharge (HQ100) as well as the case of a system overload. Forces, flow velocity and flow depths and the effect of debris accumulation are also part of the research. The main goal is to find the optimal filter structure with the highest effectivity. The results of this model will be realized at the Naarn river.
Potential flow regime alterations under climate change in an intermittent river system
Authors: De Girolamo Anna Maria , Lo Porto Antonio
Published: March 2020

The potential impact of climate change on the flow regime was analyzed for the Celone River, an intermittent river system in the Apulia Region (S_E, Italy). Rainfall and temperature recorded in the past century were analyzed. Flow regime under climate projections for the future (2030–2059) and for the recent conditions (1980–2009) were compared. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool, a hydrological model, was used to simulate daily streamflow in selected river sections.

Daily climate data used to simulate future scenarios were obtained by a combination of a global circulation model (GCM, ECHAM5) and different regional models (RACMO2; RCA; REMO). The impact on the hydrological regime was estimated as a deviation from the baseline (1980–2009) by using a number of indicators of hydrological alterations.

From 1919 to 2012, a slight reduction in total annual rainfall and a decrease of the number of rainy days was recorded, hence, an increase in extreme rainfall events. From 1954 to 2012, the minimum daily temperature in January and February increased reducing the snowfall.

Under future scenarios, an increase in mean temperature was predicted for all months between 0.5–2.4 °C and a reduction in precipitation (by 4–7%). As a consequence, the flow regime moves towards drier conditions and the divergence of the flow regime from the current conditions increases in future scenarios, especially for those reaches classified as I‐D (ie, intermittent‐dry) and E (ephemeral).

Hydrological indicators showed an extension of the dry season and an exacerbation of the extreme low flow conditions with a decrease in both high flow and low flow magnitudes for various time durations. These changes are expected to have several implications for river ecosystems that have to be considered in River Basin Management and Planning.
Topographic maps – an important data source for investigating long-term glacier variations
Authors: Knoflach Bettina , Geitner Clemens , Stötter Johann
Published: March 2020

The mountain cryosphere has been disproportionally affected by climate warming and changing precipitation conditions since the 19th century. This has caused intense and multiple reactions in high mountain hydrosphere, lithosphere, reliefsphere, biosphere and pedosphere. Although there is general knowledge on climate-related changes of glaciers, little is known about the high-resoluted temporal and spatial development of glaciers in the last century. These knowledge gaps further implicate limitations by simulating past and future development of the mountain cryosphere difficult, as important calibration and validation data are missing.

Topographic maps contain important information, as they are among the most reliable area-wide representations of past landscape for the time before airborne data acquisition. Thus, they offer the opportunity to extract former glacier extents and to close the information gap between the LIA extent, reconstructed from moraine extent, and aerial derived glacier information in the recent past.

However, as maps represent entities of a real world generalized depending e.g. on the intension of mapping, we consider map uncertainties as a crucial aspect for the reconstruction of glaciers from historical data.

In order to assess the accuracy of glacier area and front position from topographic maps, we reconstruct glacier extents under consideration of a comprehensive systematic examination of the uncertainty with regard to position, time and attribute. For this purpose, we use information of 12 topographic maps with a scale of 1:75,000 or larger from Kaunertal, covering a time span of 139 years (1871 – 2010) and analyse the accuracy of the maps focusing on production-related and transformation-oriented uncertainty.

The comparison between the glacier changes, derived from the maps and the original data (if available) as well as those measured in situ, shows that topographic maps are a reliable data source for the reconstruction of glacier front variations and provide vital key information when studying long time series.
Structural analysis and 3D geological modelling of the Santerno transect in the Northern Apennines (Italy)
Authors: Lorenzo Griso , Andrea Bistacchi , Fabrizio Storti
Published: March 2020

We present preliminary results of a structural analysis and 3D modelling project carried out along a transect in the Santerno Valley, between Firenzuola (Tuscany) and the outskirts of Imola. The aim of the project is to combine surface geological and structural data (available thanks to the national geological mapping CARG project and original surveys), with the available subsurface data (2D seismics and a few wells), and obtain a comprehensive 3D framework for deformation in this key area of the Northern Apennines. In addition, by combining geodetic, seismicity and interferometric data with the 3D structural model, we are able to obtain a better picture of the active structures in the area.

Our analysis shows that the studied transect is at the northern periclinal hinge of a regional anticline/window where the Marnoso-Arenacea Formation crops out and is crosscut by several regional-scale thrusts. Subsurface data suggest that these relatively shallow thrusts are rooted at the top of Mesozoic carbonates, that do not crop out in the area. Different balancing algorithms confirm a relevant along-strike variation of slip along these thrusts, that reduce their offset towards the periclinal hinge to the west.

In the more external part of the transect, towards the lower hills and the plain around Imola, a regional-scale pop-up, evidenced by the late-Messinian unconformity, is the main feature in subsurface datasets. This structure is rooted at the base of Mesozoic carbonates and is characterized by large and continuous ramps that can be considered candidates for recent earthquakes in the area.
Quantitative characterization of fracture networks on Digital Outcrop Models obtained from avionic and terrestrial laser scanner
Authors: Arienti Gloria , Pozzi Matteo , Losa Anna , Agliardi Federico , Monopoli Bruno , Bistacchi Andrea , Bertolo Davide
Published: March 2020

We present a semi-automatic workflow aimed at extracting quantitative structural data from point clouds obtained with avionic and terrestrial laser scanners (Lidar and TLS). The workflow is characterized by a calibration phase followed by an automatic data-collection phase. The large datasets of “fractures” mapped in this way are analysed with statistical methods allowing to define representative parameters of the fracture network.

In the first phase, the intervention of an expert interpreter with structural geology skills is fundamental to evaluate which features can be interpreted as fractures in the point clouds. In the second phase, an automatic segmentation and classification is performed, based on phase 1 calibration, that allows extracting very large fracture datasets. The main steps in phase 1 are: manual segmentation of facets representing fracture surfaces, orientation analysis and definition of fracture sets (possibly supported by kinematic analysis), definition of orientation parameters to be used for automatic segmentation. Phase 2 analysis proceeds with the automatic segmentation of subset point clouds that include just one fracture set. In these point clouds, facets representing fractures lying on different planes are well separated and disconnected, and this allows applying automatic vectorization techniques that extract individual facets representing single fractures on the outcrop surface. The datasets issued from this processing are analysed with automatic algorithms allowing to define fracture spacing and orientation statistics with a very large support, that would not have been allowed by other methodologies.
Reactive transport modeling of an innovative nature-based solution for domestic sewage treatment
Authors: Boog Johannes , Kalbacher Thomas , Nivala Jaime , van Afferden Manfred , Müller Roland A.
Published: March 2020

The discharge of inadequately treated sewage is still a worldwide problem that contributes to the deterioration of receiving water bodies. Especially in urban environments of less developed countries this threatens drinking water availability and, therefore, puts human health at risk and impedes sustainable urban development. Aerated treatment wetlands are innovative nature-based solutions that have been successfully applied in treating domestic, municipal and industrial effluents. The advantage of these technologies is their simplicity which translates into low operation and maintenance requirements and robust treatment. Aerated wetlands can be easily integrated into  decentralized water infrastructure to serve the demand of changing and fast-growing urban environments.

Aerated wetlands mimic natural processes to treat wastewater. Air is injected into these systems to provide an aerobic environment for increased aerobic biodegradation of pollutants. However, quantitative knowledge on how aeration governs oxygen transfer, organic matter and nitrogen removal within aerated wetlands is still insufficient.

In this study, we developed a reactive transport model for horizontal sub-surface flow aerated wetlands using the open-source multi-physics simulator OpenGeoSys. The model was calibrated and validated by pilot-scale experiments with real domestic sewage including steady-state operation and induced aeration failures. In both cases, the model achieved an acceptable degree of simulation accuracy. Furthermore, the experiments including short—term aeration failure showed that horizontal flow aerated wetlands can fully recover from such operational disruptions.

We then analyzed several simulation scenarios and found out that increasing aeration alters and shifts water quality gradients for organic carbon and nitrogen downstream. This can, for instance, be exploited to provide specific effluent qualities for different demands in an urban environment such as irrigation or groundwater recharge. We identified that the aeration rate required to provide an efficient and robust treatment efficacy for organic carbon and nitrogen of domestic wastewater is 150–200 L m2 h1. The developed model can be used by researchers and engineers to support the design of horizontal flow aerated wetlands in the context of applications in urban environments. Furthermore, our research highlights the suitability of horizontal flow aerated wetlands as a resilient treatment technology with potential application for water pollution control in urban environments.
Interaction of water table management and mice infestation on greenhouse gas emissions from intensively used grasslands on Histosol
Authors: Tiemeyer Bärbel , Heller Sebastian , Oehmke Sebastian Willi , Dettmann Ullrich
Published: March 2020

During the last century, drainage turned the majority of the bogs and fens in Germany into productive agricultural land, causing substantial emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). The project ‘SWAMPS’ focuses both on maintaining the trafficability for conventional intensive grassland use and on the reduction of GHG emissions by managing the groundwater level by submerged drains and blocked ditches. Here, we aim to evaluate the interaction of water table management and a severe mice infestation on the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4).

We set up two field sites on both fen and bog peat in North-Western Germany. Submerged drains were installed at a distance of 4 to 5 m and with a target ditch level of 45 to 50 cm below mean soil surface. On the parcels with blocked ditches, the target ditch level is adjusted at 30 to 35 cm. The control parcels are drained by ditches and/or drainage pipes. Since 2017, diurnal CO2 flux measurement campaigns have been realised once every three to four weeks with transparent and opaque chambers and a portable gas analyser. CH4 and N2O samples are taken biweekly and additionally more frequently after fertilizer application.

However, our experimental design was disrupted when, after an extremely dry summer and a dry and mild winter, the mice population grew strongly in 2019. We monitored both the number of mouse holes and the damage by mice. At the bog site, nearly no grass was left at the control site at the end of the year, while at the fen site, less, but still significant damage was observed. In this year, this was typical for the situation in North-Western Germany, where around 150,000 ha of grassland were severely damaged by mice. The sites with water table management were less effected by mice, but as food became scarce, they started to move into these wetter areas as well.

Despite higher water levels, CO2 emissions in 2019 were partially higher than in previous years, especially at those sites affected by mice. With this presentation, we would like to discuss the effects of mice damage on soil respiration and on possibilities to disentangle water management effects from this (experimental and agricultural) calamity.  
Development of an integrated drought assessment model for drought monitoring: A case study in Anhui province, China
Authors: Yang Xiaojing , Sun Hongquan , Su Zhicheng , Lv Juan , Cai Siyang
Published: March 2020

Drought is always triggered by long-term deficit of precipitation and extreme temperature, which had led to huge losses of the economy in China. But to what extent have we defined the drought scale in contrast to farmland, river basin, grassland, forests and other types of the underlying surface? It is a vital issue for improving the accuracy of drought monitoring model/system. This study focused on developing an integrated drought assessment model which can reveal the relatively reasonable true drought circumstances and improve the monitoring ability of professional drought monitoring operation system. The object-oriented method was merged into the drought monitoring model. In order to verify the accuracy of the integrated drought assessment model, the model was applied in the professional operated drought monitoring system of Anhui Province. The monitoring system can automatically serve the daily drought monitoring map which directly shows the spatial distribution and intruded area within 4 diverse drought levels. The monitoring results indicated Anhui Province has suffered a persistent drought since the second half of 2019. And the severe drought was released by effective precipitation during August 10-13, which was caused by Typhoon Lekima. Then the drought-prone region and drought severity were consistently increasing until the extensive precipitation process in the whole province during November 26-27. The real drought development and changing phases were accurately detected by the integrated drought assessment model. And the drought impact areas from the model were coincidence with the reported data from local government. Beside that, monitoring results were approved by the local professional personnel and experts for drought monitoring.
Testing different methods for the extraction and purification of leaf and phloem sugars for oxygen isotope analysis
Authors: Egli Melanie , Lehmann Marco M. , Brinkmann Nadine , Werner Roland A. , Saurer Matthias , Kahmen Ansgar
Published: March 2020

Oxygen isotope analysis of plant material, such as sugars in different tissues, provides an important tool to understand how plants function, interact with their environment and also cope with climate change. Knowing how to extract and purify carbohydrates without artificially altering their oxygen isotope ratio (δ18O) is therefore essential.

We aimed to resolve the impact of different steps on sugars' δ18O values during their extraction and purification from leaf and phloem tissue. More precisely, we investigated (1) different drying processes (oven- vs freeze-drying), and (2) how extraction and purification affect leaf sugars. To clearly see fractionation and exchange processes, these experiments were performed using 18O-labelled water. We further examined (3) the influence of different EDTA media and immersion times to facilitate sugar exudation and subsequent yield from twig phloem tissue. Finally, we analysed (4) the sugar phloem composition, as well as the individual compounds’ carbon isotopic signatures (δ13C).

Comparison of freeze- and oven-dried sugars showed lower δ18O memory effects and more consistent oxygen isotopic signatures across different sugars, indicating lyophilisation as the more reliable method. The extraction and purification can be conducted without significant oxygen isotope fractionation. However, 18O-depletion was observed when sugars were dissolved and dried multiple times. This suggests that additional dissolution and drying steps should best be avoided whenever possible. Different immersion times and exudation media during twig phloem extraction revealed to have a substantial influence on the phloem sugars' overall oxygen isotopic signature, their composition, and the individual compounds' δ13C values.

Our research illustrates which precautions during sample preparation – from drying to extracting and purifying – need to be taken when plant sugars and their oxygen isotopic signature are of interest. Regarding the preservation of the phloem sugars' original δ18O values and stabilising their composition (prevention of sucrose degradation) as much as possible, we recommend a short immersion time of approx. 1 hour. After a thorough initial rinse of the tissue, the sap should be eluted in pure water without any additives (no EDTA). This further reduces the possibility of hexoses to exchange oxygen with that of the surrounding water.
Quantitative fracture characterization in the damage zone of the Victoria Fault, Malta
Authors: Losa Anna , Martinelli Mattia , Bistacchi Andrea
Published: March 2020

Fault damage zones can be preferential conduits for geofluids, depending on the secondary permeability developed with fracturing. Large-scale outcrop analogues allow a complete characterization of fracture networks, that cannot be satisfactorily imaged in the subsurface (e.g. with seismics). In this project we mapped fractures in the damage zone of the Victoria Fault, a major normal fault crosscutting Miocene shallow-water carbonates of Malta, combining field analysis and a high resolution photogrammetric Digital Outcrop Model (DOM). This allowed characterizing (i) the damage zone width, (ii) its spatial organization, (iii) geometrical parameters of the fracture network and (iv) its connectivity, and (v) the variability of these parameters in different stratigraphic units.
Recent developments in the INCA analysis and nowcasting system
Authors: Bica Benedikt , Hadzimustafic Jasmina , Atencia Aitor , Kulmer Martin , Hollosi Brigitta , Schneider Stefan , Kann Alexander , Wang Yong
Published: March 2020

The high-resolution INCA system (Integrated Nowcasting through Comprehensive Analysis) provides gridded analyses and short-term forecasts of meteorological fields at a horizontal resolution of 1 km and at 5 to 60 min temporal resolution. After the nowcasting part, INCA fields are blended into AROME or a statistically optimized combination of NWP models, thus providing a seamless chain of forecasting fields at various scales. As an operational product of the national Austrian weather service (ZAMG), INCA is employed for a number of applications, such as for hydrological runoff modelling, severe weather warnings, in road safety, agriculture and in the renewable energy sector. The product development is embedded into the research activities of the last year period which, amongst others, included the development of new blending methods into the state of the art NWP models, a new approach for precipitation analysis and nowcasting as well as the evaluation of wind, temperature and humidity analyses at 100 m horizontal resolution. For precipitation, a new radar-raingauge merging algorithm has been developed, which is based on station density and radar minimum beam height. Precipitation nowcasting uses optical flow and nested subdomains for breaking down the displacement vectors to the target grid. In the sub-kilometer version, the improvements due to the topography-relevant features (i.e. altitude, slope) in Alpine areas are shown as well as the potential benefits of high resolution nowcasting in urban areas. The methods and related results will be presented along with a comprehensive verification.
Deep neural networks for total organic carbon prediction and data-driven sampling
Authors: González Ávalos Everardo , Burwicz Ewa
Published: March 2020

Over the past decade deep learning has been used to solve a wide array of regression and classification tasks. Compared to classical machine learning approaches (k-Nearest Neighbours, Random Forests,… ) deep learning algorithms excel at learning complex, non-linear internal representations in part due to the highly over-parametrised nature of their underling models; thus, this advantage often comes at the cost of interpretability. In this work we used deep neural network to construct global total organic carbon (TOC) seafloor concentration map. Implementing Softmax distributions on implicitly continuous data (regression tasks) we were able to obtain probability distributions to asses prediction reliability. A variation of Dropout called Monte Carlo Dropout is also used during the inference step providing a tool to model prediction uncertainties. We used these techniques to create a model information map which is a key element to develop new data-driven sampling strategies for data acquisition. 
A modelling perspective of North Pacific Intermediate water in the future
Authors: Gong Xun , Ackermann Lars , Lohmann Gerrit
Published: March 2020

North Pacific Intermediate water (NPIW) is a dominant water mass controlling ~400-1200m depth North Pacific Ocean, characterized by its low salinities and relatively lower temperatures. In the modern climate, the interplay between NPIW-related physical and biogeochemical processes among seasons determines annual-mean budget and efficiency of carbon sink into the North Pacific Ocean. Thus, to understand the NPIW physics is key to project roles of the North Pacific Ocean in changing Earth climate and carbon systems in the future. In this study, we provide a modelling view of the NPIW history since Yr 1850 (historical experiment) and its projection to near future (IPCC-defined RCP 4.2 and 8.5 experiments until Yr 2100), using new-generation Alfred Wegener Institute Earth System Model (AWI-ESM). Our results suggest an important role of regional hydroclimate feedback over the NW Pacific and Sea of Okhotsk in determining the NPIW from recent past to near future.
Opto-Mechanical Inertial Sensors (OMIS) for High Temporal Resolution Gravimetry
Authors: Kumanchik Lee , Guzman Felipe , Braxmaier Claus
Published: March 2020

Gravity field measurement by free-falling atoms has the potential for very high stability
over time as the measurement exposes a direct, fundamental relationship between mass
and acceleration. However, the measurement rate of the current state-of-the-art limits
the performance at short timescales (greater than 1 Hz). Classical inertial sensors operate
at much faster response times and are thus natural companions for free-falling atom
sensors. Such a hybrid device would gain the ultra-high stability of the free-falling atom
sensor while greatly extending the bandwidth to higher frequency using the classical
sensor. This requires the stable bandwidth of both devices to overlap sufficiently. We
have developed opto-mechanical inertial sensors (OMIS) with good long term stability for
just this purpose. The sensors are made of highly stable fused silica material, feature a
monolithic optical cavity for displacement readout, and utilize a laser diode stabilized to
a molecular reference. With no temperature control and only the thermal shielding
provided by the vacuum chamber, this device is stable down to 0.1 Hz which overlaps
with the bandwidth of free-falling atom sensors. The OMIS are self-calibrating by
converting the fundamental resonances of a molecular gas into length using the
free-spectral range of the optical cavity,  FSR = c/2nL,  and then sampling the OMIS
mechanical damping rate and resonance frequency using a nearby piezo. This
acceleration calibration is potentially transferable to a companion free-falling atom
sensor. Readout is performed by modulating the cavity length of the OMIS with one
cavity mirror being the OMIS itself and the other being a high frequency resonator. The
high frequency resonator is driven by a nearby piezo well above the response rate of the
OMIS and acts like an ultrastable quartz clock. The resulting highly stable tone is
demodulated by the readout electronics. For the low finesse optical cavity used here, this
yields a displacement resolution of 2x10-13 m/√Hz and a high frequency acceleration
resolution of 400 ng /√Hz. At 0.1 Hz the acceleration resolution is 1.5 μg /√Hz limited by
the stability of our vibration isolation stage. The OMIS dimensions are about 30 mm x 30
mm x 5 mm and can be fiber coupled to enable co-location with other sensors or as
standalone devices for future gravimetry both on Earth and in space
Developing land use strategies in landscapes with changing priority, the case of peatland management
Authors: Monteverde Stephen , Healy Mark , Callery Oisín
Published: March 2020

Globally, peatlands experience water storage fluctuations. Seasonality was once the sole contributor of this natural water table variation, however, for many years, freshwater drainage of peatlands for agriculture, afforestation, and energy production has been prevalent. With constant changes in storage, there exists a measurable connection between subsurface water levels and solute transport in the deep layers of peatland material. Traditionally, water level modelling has benefitted environmental protection schemes with the identification of critically important areas and by implementing relevant hydraulic structures for optimal protection. Restoration and rehabilitation efforts occurring in the last several decades have occasionally highlighted results of miscalculation, whereby a peatland’s capacity to alleviate water flux effects was overestimated in degraded regions. Once a peat layer becomes dry and aerated, it decomposes, releasing nitrogen and other nutrients into the environment. Conversely, if a peatland is inundated beyond its storage capacity, aggregates of peat and vegetation become suspended within the excess water, signifying the potential for an increased methane flux.

In spite of an ideal water level, one that satisfies a degraded condition while preventing excess flooding, research must continue to expand upon land use and management activities and how they affect hydrology and water quality parameters across a given peatland. To quantify geochemical and hydrological properties given the scale of highly variable peat parameters, many studies have relied on single point data to represent peatlands. Since water chemistry has a strong control on geophysics in peatland environments, a remote sensing technique was used in this study to qualitatively describe the surface of a cutaway peatland. Qualitative analysis of the study site describes soil moisture and peat depth through a geophysical interpretation and an ability to detect gamma radiation.

Remote sensing data, acquired by the Geological Survey Ireland, was used to capture radiometric variation at the study site. The airborne survey data was used to identify suitable locations on the study site in which to collect representative soil cores, which were then brought to the laboratory for analysis. The results from laboratory-based hydrological testing of these cores will be used to quantify the impacts of various water management regimes on site. By combining geophysical analysis with laboratory measurements of soil and water chemistry, there is an opportunity for improving upon the development of suitable mitigation measures.
Mercury's Na exosphere as seen with very high spectral resolution from the ground, and from space with MESSENGER
Authors: Mouawad Nelly , Chebly Judy , Leblanc François , Fraine Jonathan , Fatima Kahil
Published: March 2020

The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging NASA’s spacecraft, known as MESSENGER, flew by Mercury on September 29, 2009. It was the spacecraft’s third and final flyby, before it went into orbit around the planet. The flyby presented a unique trajectory approach and perspective on the planet’s exosphere, not available when in orbit. We present very high spectral resolution ground-based data obtained at the University of Texas McDonald 2.7-m telescope. These data were acquired within hours of the data taken with the Ultraviolet and Visible Spectrometer (UVVS) onboard MESSENGER. Both datasets targeted similar spatial regions, in the polar altitudes of Mercury. We compare the sodium emissions from both measurements in the exosphere. We find that close to the surface, both intensity measurements match, but the intensities fall off differently with altitude, with the MESSENGER data showing an exponential drop off, sharper than that of the ground-based data; an effect that we attribute to atmospheric seeing. In addition, our ground-based data provided Full Width Half Maximum (fwhm) speeds and Doppler shift speeds; our results suggest energetic processes took place in the polar regions on the dusk side of the planet, but arguably on the dawn side as well. We confirm previous conclusions of Leblanc et al. (2008, 2009) where signatures of energetic processes seem to be coupled with high fwhm speeds and intensity peaks. We compare our Doppler shift velocities with previous works, and find agreement within the uncertainties with Potter et al., (2013) on their transit velocity measurements. Although our peak emissions along the terminator vary in structure and in brightness, they do not exhibit distinctive signatures in the intensity profiles at altitudes above the poles, when compared with convolved MESSENGER space data.
Climate change mitigation and adaptation by biochar: mechanisms and regulatory trend in the rhizosphere
Authors: Feizi Ali , Razavi Bahar
Published: March 2020

Climate change represents a key challenge to the sustainability of global ecosystems and human prosperity in the twenty-first century. The impacts of climate change combined with natural climate variability are predominantly adverse, and often exacerbate other environmental challenges such as degradation of ecosystems, loss of biodiversity, and air, water and land pollution. Besides, rapid industrialization and increasing adaption of agrochemical based crop production practices since green revolution have considerably increased the heavy metal contaminations in the environment.

Assessing the impacts of climate change on our planet and addressing risks and opportunities is essential for taking decisions that will remain robust under future conditions, when many climate change impacts are expected to become more significant.

Here, we established a review survey to assess the impact of biochar amendment and agroforstry system on CO2 sequestration and methaloid remediation.

Our data base showed that Agroforestry-based solutions for carbon dioxide capture and sequestration for climate change mitigation and adaptation in long-term is more practical and realistic options for a sustainable ecosystem and decreasing negative effect of climate change. This was more supported in arid and semi-arid regions as well as area with saline and alkaline soil (20%).

From a soil remediation standpoint, the general trend has been shifting from reduction of the total concentration to reduction of the physic-chemically and/or biologically available fractions of metals. This regulatory shift represents a tremendous saving in remediation cost. While metals are not degradable, their speciation and binding with soil through biochar amending reduced their solubility, mobility, and bioavailability. While agroforestry showed high efficiency in C sequestration (32%), biochar amendment raveled significant mitigation in heavymetals bioavailability (42%). However, studies which coupled both approaches are limited. Thus, we conclude that combined Agroforestry and biochar amendment regulates C sequestration and metalloids remediation more efficiently.
The complexity of carbonate porosity distribution in the Upper Marrat Formation, Central Saudi Arabia
Authors: Ahmed Saleh , González Luis , Reijmer Johannes Jozef Gerardus , ElHusseiny Ammar
Published: March 2020

In terms of reservoir properties distribution carbonate rocks are very heterogeneous. Moreover, the types of porosity in carbonate rocks is very diverse. In our study of the Upper Marrat Formation near Khasm-adh-Dhibi (central Saudi Arabia) we have documented the pore system complexity and are deconvolving the impact of various post-depositional processes on porosity and permeability evolution of the formation. The Upper Marrat Formation is exposed in the central part of the Arabian plate in a north-south elongated mountain belt. It forms the lower part of the thick Jurassic petroleum-rich succession. The sediments forming the Upper Marrat Formation were deposited during the Early Jurassic time, the Toarcian. The Upper Marrat Formation shows fossiliferous biomicrite to sparse biomicrite carbonates with an evaporite deposit at the top. It is bounded by clayey units at both the top and the base. In general, because of the muddy matrix of the Upper Marrat, sediments are very tight and show low permeability. During the last 175 My, the Upper Marrat has been subjected to a series of diagenetic and tectonic processes. The initial micro- and intergranular porosity was reduced due to early compaction and cementation, however, during later diagenesis and tectonism, porosity and permeability were enhanced. The dominant diagenetic porosity in the Upper Marrat sediments is vuggy porosity, followed by fabric selective intragranular porosity. Many of the horizons in the Upper Marrat are heavily burrowed and mostly filled with sand-sized grains showing a higher porosity than the matrix. Dolomite is limited to evaporite strata and contain extensive inter-crystalline porosity produced during dolomite formation. Tectonism has enhanced porosity through the development of micro- and macro-fractures.  The different sized and orientated micro-fractures are important while they enhance permeability by connecting different pore types. Then extensive macro-fracture network has a major impact on the reservoir qualities, both porosity and permeability. The heavily fractured formation shows numerous fractures sets with NNE to SSW and ENE to WNW orientations. Fractures are mostly vertical to near-vertical; they are nearly all open, and often crosscut beds, or end at bedding planes. These fractures are the most abundant porosity type and their connectivity results in a very high permeability. In conclusion, initial porosity and permeability, and subsequent diagenetic and tectonic processes reduced and enhanced the porosity and permeability development of the sediments of the Early Jurassic Upper Marrat Formation.
Advances in Scientific Visualization of Geospatial Data with MATLAB
Authors: Kempler Lisa , Schäfer Steve
Published: March 2020

Data visualization plays an essential role in conveying complex relationships in real-world physical systems. As geoscience and atmospheric data quantities and data sources have increased, so, too, have the corresponding capabilities in MATLAB and Mapping Toolbox for analyze and visualize them. The talk will present end-to-end geospatial analysis workflows, from data access to visualization to publication. The talk will include software demonstrations of how to process and visualize large out-of-memory data, including accessing remote and cloud-based file systems; working with multiple data formats and sources, such as Web Map Service (WMS), for visualizing of publicly accessible geospatial information; and applying new 2-D and 3-D high resolution mapping visualizations. MATLAB live notebooks combining code, pictures, graphics, and equations will show the use of interactive notebooks for capturing, teaching, and research sharing.
Crop response to climate change: SPAR facilities, capabilities and tools
Authors: Reddy Vangimalla , Jyostna Devi Mura
Published: March 2020

Environmental stress factors have far‐reaching implications on global food security and significantly impact crop production through their effects on soil fertility, carbon sequestration, plant growth, and productivity.  Several approaches have been used to assess the effects of environmental stress factors on crops and to evaluate possible solutions. One such approach is the use of crop simulation models to explore the impact of climate stresses on crop plants will be discussed in this presentation, to provide a more accurate understanding of climate change effects on agriculture in the coming decades. Crop models, based on appropriate concepts and processes, have the predictive capability under new environments and can be used either alone or with other emerging newer technologies to disseminate plant growth and development information. Crop models such as GOSSYM, a cotton simulation model was used to evaluate crop responses to factors such as weather, irrigation, and fertilization by simulating the growth and production of crops from planting to harvest. The presentation also discusses the SPAR (Soil-Plant-Atmosphere Research) system to generate data required to understand various facets of growth and developmental processes and to build process-level models for managing the cotton crop to abiotic stresses. The SPAR units are optimized for the measurement of a plant and canopy-level physiological responses such as photosynthesis and transpiration under precisely controlled, but naturally lit, environmental conditions and to relate the basic processes directly to the environment. Various validation efforts of the GOSSYM cotton simulation model and its uses in multiple applications such as climate change impacts, technology transfer, hypothesis testing in research, farm management, and policymaking decisions will be discussed.
Scientific integrity, personal responsibility, public trust and the role of professional societies
Authors: Bamber Jonathan
Published: March 2020

There is a perception that trust in science and scientists has been eroded by, amongst other forces, populist ideologies that have rapidly gained traction in Europe, the Americas and elsewhere in recent years. Apparent scepticism about climate change, efficacy of vaccines and an ideology that promotes self-interest over the greater good has the potential to erode trust in scientists who are often painted as disconnected, intellectual elite. As a highly educated, UK government minister and Justice Secretary recently and famously stated “people in this country have had enough of experts”. If that is true, then who are the public listening to and who do they trust? Have we really entered a post-truth world? Is this picture a true reflection of public attitudes? Where do these narratives come from and what can scientists do to counteract a potentially destructive portrayal of our community? In this presentation, I aim to tackle these questions alongside the role that organisations such as EGU can play and the importance of transparency, honesty and openness to dispel the myths promulgated by some of the negative forces acting in society today. I will do this with examples drawn from my own experiences as an academic and former president of EGU. I will reflect on some of the challenges we faced, how we responded to them and the lessons learned.