January 2020
New Nature Paper: Soil structure is an important omission in Earth System Models
The paper demonstrates impacts of soil structure on ecosystem processes and land atmosphere interaction in current Earth system models remain elusive.
Figure: Simulated long-term average (T&C) ecosystem-scale runoff (a) and water drainage at the bottom of the soil profile (b) for the 20 locations as a function of the local Gross Primary Production (GPP). Two scenarios are shown: VG soil hydraulic parameter (van Genuchten parameterization) derived from global maps and without soil structural effects and VG + SS soil hydraulic parameter derived from global map with soil structural effects. The red arrows indicate the magnitude of change after introducing soil structural effects.
Source and reference:
Fatichi, S., Or, D., Walko, R. et al. Soil structure is an important omission in Earth System Models. Nat Commun 11, 522 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-14411-z
11th CSDMS Annual Meeting: Linking Ecosphere and Geosphere
May 19 -21st 2020, Boulder Colorado, USA
The aim of the meeting is to explore connections between ecosystems and earth-surface
processes such as erosion, sedimentation, soil dynamics, and landscape/seascape evolution.
New Soil Model: CPlantBox
'CPlantBox is a full plant modelling framework based on the root system model CRootBox.it is capable of simulating the growth and development of a variety of plant architectures (root and shoot). In addition, the flexibility of CPlantBox enables its coupling with external modeling tools. Here, we connected it to an existing mechanistic model of water and carbon flows in the plant, PiafMunch.'
Zhou et al. 2019. 'CPlantBox, a whole plant modelling framework for the simulation of water and carbon related processes'.
New Data Set: National Ecological Observatory Network
NEON provides open data to understand how ecosystems are changing, including continuous and discrete measurements of soil physical, chemical, and biological properties. Data are collected at 47 terrestrial sties spanning the US using standard protocols and instrumentation.