ALBERT

Description: © The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Renfrew, I. A., Pickart, R. S., Vage, K., Moore, G. W. K., Bracegirdle, T. J., Elvidge, A. D., Jeansson, E., Lachlan-Cope, T., McRaven, L. T., Papritz, L., Reuder, J., Sodemann, H., Terpstra, A., Waterman, S., Valdimarsson, H., Weiss, A., Almansi, M., Bahr, F., Brakstad, A., Barrell, C., Brooke, J. K., Brooks, B. J., Brooks, I. M., Brooks, M. E., Bruvik, E. M., Duscha, C., Fer, I., Golid, H. M., Hallerstig, M., Hessevik, I., Huang, J., Houghton, L., Jonsson, S., Jonassen, M., Jackson, K., Kvalsund, K., Kolstad, E. W., Konstali, K., Kristiansen, J., Ladkin, R., Lin, P., Macrander, A., Mitchell, A., Olafsson, H., Pacini, A., Payne, C., Palmason, B., Perez-Hernandez, M. D., Peterson, A. K., Petersen, G. N., Pisareva, M. N., Pope, J. O., Seidl, A., Semper, S., Sergeev, D., Skjelsvik, S., Soiland, H., Smith, D., Spall, M. A., Spengler, T., Touzeau, A., Tupper, G., Weng, Y., Williams, K. D., Yang, X., & Zhou, S. The Iceland Greenland Seas Project. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 100(9), (2019): 1795-1817, doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0217.1.

Description: The Iceland Greenland Seas Project (IGP) is a coordinated atmosphere–ocean research program investigating climate processes in the source region of the densest waters of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. During February and March 2018, a field campaign was executed over the Iceland and southern Greenland Seas that utilized a range of observing platforms to investigate critical processes in the region, including a research vessel, a research aircraft, moorings, sea gliders, floats, and a meteorological buoy. A remarkable feature of the field campaign was the highly coordinated deployment of the observing platforms, whereby the research vessel and aircraft tracks were planned in concert to allow simultaneous sampling of the atmosphere, the ocean, and their interactions. This joint planning was supported by tailor-made convection-permitting weather forecasts and novel diagnostics from an ensemble prediction system. The scientific aims of the IGP are to characterize the atmospheric forcing and the ocean response of coupled processes; in particular, cold-air outbreaks in the vicinity of the marginal ice zone and their triggering of oceanic heat loss, and the role of freshwater in the generation of dense water masses. The campaign observed the life cycle of a long-lasting cold-air outbreak over the Iceland Sea and the development of a cold-air outbreak over the Greenland Sea. Repeated profiling revealed the immediate impact on the ocean, while a comprehensive hydrographic survey provided a rare picture of these subpolar seas in winter. A joint atmosphere–ocean approach is also being used in the analysis phase, with coupled observational analysis and coordinated numerical modeling activities underway.

Description: The IGP has received funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation: Grant OCE-1558742; the U.K.’s Natural Environment Research Council: AFIS (NE/N009754/1); the Research Council of Norway: MOCN (231647), VENTILATE (229791), SNOWPACE (262710) and FARLAB (245907); and the Bergen Research Foundation (BFS2016REK01). We thank all those involved in the field work associated with the IGP, particularly the officers and crew of the Alliance, and the operations staff of the aircraft campaign.

Description: Growth response to thinning has long been a research topic of interest in forest science. This study presents the first 3–4 years of response of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) growth to thinning at different intensities. Data were collected from the East Texas Pine Research Project’s region-wide loblolly pine thinning study, which covers a wide variety of stand conditions. Four treatments, light, moderate, and heavy thinning, respectively having 370, 555, and 740 residual trees per hectare after thinning, and an unthinned control, were included. Individual tree diameter at breast height (dbh) and total height were recorded annually for the first 3–4 years after thinning. Results indicate significant differences between treatments in dbh growth in each year after thinning, as well as for all years combined. Each thinning treatment had significantly greater dbh growth than the control in the first growing season with this positive response being more evident in the case of the heavier thinning or at the later years post-thinning. Conversely, the thinning effect on tree height growth was initially negligibly negative, then becoming positive after 2–4 years, with the heavier thinning becoming positive sooner. Tree size class, assigned based on prethinning dbh, had a significant effect on both dbh and height growth responses. Compared to the control, small trees had a greater response both in dbh and in height growth than the medium and large trees over the measurement period. At the stand level, the heavier thinning had significantly less stand basal area per hectare, but the difference in stand basal area per hectare between the thinned and the unthinned plots decreased with years post-thinning. Results from this study can improve our understanding in thinning effects and help forest managers make accurate decisions on silvicultural regimes.