Search results for "Atmospheric Science"

Effects of climate change and land use intensification on regional biological soil crust cover and composition in southern Africa

2022

Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) form a regular and relevant feature in drylands, as they stabilize the soil, fix nutrients, and influence water cycling. However, biocrust forming organisms have been shown to be dramatically vulnerable to climate and land use change occurring in these regions. In this study, we used Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data of biocrust-dominated pixels (NDVIbiocrust) obtained from hyperspectral and LANDSAT-7 data to analyse biocrust development over time and to forecast future NDVIbiocrust development under different climate change and livestock density scenarios in southern Africa. We validated these results by analysing the occurrence and compo…

Modelling nitrous oxide emissions from cropland at the regional scale

2006

Arable soils are a large source of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions, making up half of the biogenic emissions worldwide. Estimating their source strength requires methods capable of capturing the spatial and temporal variability of N2O emissions, along with the effects of crop management. Here, we applied a process-based model, CERES, with geo-referenced input data on soils, weather, and land use to map N2O emissions from wheat-cropped soils in three agriculturally intensive regions in France. Emissions were mostly controlled by soil type and local climate conditions, and only to a minor extent by the doses of fertilizer nitrogen applied. As a result, the direct emission factors calculated at …

The Synergistic Impacts of Anthropogenic Stressors and COVID-19 on Aquaculture: A Current Global Perspective

2021

13 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables.-- This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License

2019

The HyPlant imaging spectrometer is a high-performance airborne instrument consisting of two sensor modules. The DUAL module records hyperspectral data in the spectral range from 400–2500 nm, which is useful to derive biochemical and structural plant properties. In parallel, the FLUO module acquires data in the red and near infrared range (670–780 nm), with a distinctly higher spectral sampling interval and finer spectral resolution. The technical specifications of HyPlant FLUO allow for the retrieval of sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), a small signal emitted by plants, which is directly linked to their photosynthetic efficiency. The combined use of both HyPlant modules opens up …

Numerical evidence for thermohaline circulation reversals during the Maastrichtian

2005

[1] The sensitivity of the Maastrichtian thermohaline circulation to the opening/closing of marine communications between the Arctic and North Pacific oceans is investigated through a set of numerical experiments using the model CLIMBER-2 (Earth Model of Intermediate Complexity). We show here that the opening or closing of an Arctic-Pacific marine gateway induces transitions between different equilibrium states of the thermohaline circulation. Sensitivity tests of the inferred modes of thermohaline circulation to atmospheric CO2 level changes have also been explored. An abrupt switch in deep convection from high northern to high southern latitudes, a change consistent with isotopic evidence…

Water vapor increase in the northern lower stratosphere by the Asian monsoon anticyclone observed during TACTS/ESMVal campaigns

2017

Abstract. The impact of air masses from Asia influenced by the Asian monsoon anticyclone on the northern hemispheric stratosphere is investigated based on in-situ measurements. An statistical significant increase in water vapor of about 0.5 ppmv (11 %) and methane up to 20 ppbv (1.2 %) in the extra-tropical stratosphere above a potential temperature of 380 K was detected between August and September 2012 by in-situ instrumentation in the northern hemisphere during the HALO aircraft mission TACTS and ESMVal. We investigate the origin of this water vapor and methane increase with the help of the three-dimensional Lagrangian chemistry transport model CLaMS. We assign the source of the moist ai…

Coralline alga reveals first marine record of subarctic North Pacific climate change

2007

[1] While recent changes in subarctic North Pacific climate had dramatic effects on ecosystems and fishery yields, past climate dynamics and teleconnection patterns are poorly understood due to the absence of century-long high-resolution marine records. We present the first 117-year long annually resolved marine climate history from the western Bering Sea/Aleutian Island region using information contained in the calcitic skeleton of the long-lived crustose coralline red alga Clathromorphum nereostratum, a previously unused climate archive. The skeletal δ18O-time series indicates significant warming and/or freshening of surface waters after the middle of the 20th century. Furthermore, the ti…

Sr/Ca and Mg/Ca ratios of ontogenetically old, long-lived bivalve shells (Arctica islandica) and their function as paleotemperature proxies

2011

International audience; The Sr/Ca and Mg/Ca ratios of many biogenic skeletons provide useful paleotemperature estimates. As yet however, it has remained largely impossible to obtain such information from bivalve shells. In the present study, metal-to-calcium values in the hinge plate (aragonite, outer shell layer) of four ontogenetically old (85 to 374 year-old) specimens of the long-lived bivalve, Arctica islandica, were measured on a LA-ICP-MS. The shells were collected alive in 1868, 1986 and 2003 from three different localities around Iceland. With increasing ontogenetic age and decreasing growth rate, a distinct trend toward increasing Sr/Ca (max. 5.17 mmol/mol) and Mg/Ca values (max. …

Flares from small to large: X-ray spectroscopy of Proxima Centauri with XMM-Newton

2003

(Abridged) We report results from a comprehensive study of the nearby M dwarf Proxima Centauri with the XMM-Newton satellite. We find strongly variable coronal X-ray emission, with flares ranging over a factor of 100 in peak flux. The low-level emission is found to be continuously variable. Several weak flares are characteristically preceded by an optical burst, compatible with predictions from standard solar flare models. We propose that the U band bursts are proxies for the elusive stellar non-thermal hard X-ray bursts suggested from solar observations. A very large X-ray flare was observed in its entirety, with a peak luminosity of 3.9E28 erg/s [0.15-10 keV] and a total X-ray energy of 1…

GJ 357 b: A Super-Earth Orbiting an Extremely Inactive Host Star

2020

Aims. In this paper we present a deep X-ray observation of the nearby M dwarf GJ 357 and use it to put constraints on the atmospheric evolution of its planet, GJ 357 b. We also analyse the systematic errors in the stellar parameters of GJ 357 in order to see how they affect the perceived planetary properties. Methods. By comparing the observed X-ray luminosity of its host star, we estimate the age of GJ 357 b as derived from a recent XMM-Newton observation (log Lx [erg s-1] = 25.73), with Lx-age relations for M dwarfs. We find that GJ 357 presents one of the lowest X-ray activity levels ever measured for an M dwarf, and we put a lower limit on its age of 5 Gyr. Using this age limit, we perf…