ALBERT

Description: Predictions of the future climate infer that stream water temperatures may increase in temperate lowland areas and that streams without riparian forest will be particularly prone to elevated stream water temperature. Planting of riparian forest is a potential mitigation measure to reduce water temperatures for the benefit of stream organisms. However, no studies have yet determined the length of a forested reach required to obtain a significant temperature decrease. To investigate this we measured the temperature in five small Danish lowland streams from June 2010 to July 2011, all showing a sharp transition between an upstream open reach and a downstream forested reach. In all stream reaches we also measured canopy cover and a range of physical variables characterizing the streams reaches. This allowed us to analyse differences in mean daily temperature and amplitude per month among forested and open sections as well as to study annual temperature regimes and the influence of physical conditions on temperature changes. Stream water temperature in the open reaches was affected by heating, and in July we observed an increase in temperature over the entire length of the investigated reaches, reaching temperatures higher than the incipient lethal limit for brown trout. Along the forest reaches a significant decrease in July temperatures was recorded immediately (100 m) when the stream moved into the forested area. In three of our study streams the temperature continued to decrease the longer the stream entered into the forested reach, and the temperature decline did not reach a plateau. The temperature increases along the open reaches were accompanied by stronger daily temperature variation; however, when the streams entered into the forest, the range in daily variation decreased. Multiple regression analysis of the combined effects on stream water temperature of canopy cover, Width/Depth ratio, discharge, current velocity and water temperature revealed that canopy cover and Width/Depth were the two variables responsible for the reduced temperature observed when the streams enter the forest. In consequence, we conclude that even relatively short stretches (100–500 m) of forest alongside streams may combat the negative effects of heating of stream water and that forest planting can be a useful mitigation measure.

Description: The use of organic soils by agriculture involves drainage and tillage, and the resulting increase in C and N turnover can significantly affect their greenhouse gas balance. This study estimated annual fluxes of CH4 and N2O, and ecosystem respiration (Reco), from eight organic soils managed by agriculture. The sites were located in three regions representing different landscape types and climatic conditions, and three land use categories (arable crops, AR, grass in rotation, RG, and permanent grass, PG) were covered. The normal management at each site was followed, except that no N inputs occurred during the monitoring period from August 2008 to October 2009. The stratified sampling strategy further included six sampling points in three blocks at each site. Environmental variables (precipitation, PAR, air and soil temperature, soil moisture, groundwater level) were monitored continuously and during sampling campaigns, where also groundwater samples were taken for analysis. Gaseous fluxes were monitored on a three-weekly basis, giving 51, 49 and 38 field campaigns for land use categories AR, PG and RG, respectively. Climatic conditions in each region during monitoring were representative based on 20-yr averages. Peat layers were shallow, typically 0.5 to 1 m, and with a pH of 4–5. At six sites annual emissions of N2O were in the range 3 to 24 kg N2O-N ha−1, but at two arable sites (spring barley, potato) net emissions of 38 and 61 kg N2O-N ha−1 were recorded. Both were characterized by fluctuating groundwater with elevated SO42− concentrations. Annual fluxes of CH4 were generally small, as expected, ranging from –2 to 4 kg CH4 ha−1. However, two permanent grasslands had tussocks of Juncus effusus (soft rush) in sampling points that were consistent sources of CH4 throughout the year. Emission factors for organic soils in rotation and permanent grass, respectively, were estimated to be 0.011 and 0.47 g m−2 for CH4, and 2.5 and 0.5 g m−2 for N2O. This first documentation of CH4 and N2O emissions from managed organic soils in Denmark confirms the levels and wide ranges of emissions previously reported for this region. However, the factorial approach also identified links between gaseous emissions and site-specific conditions with respect to soil, groundwater and vegetation which point to areas of future research that may account for part of the variability and hence lead to improved emission factors or models.

Description: Regardless of study type, site topography, homogeneity and large-scale meteorological flows, estimating ecosystem-scale surface-fluxes using the micrometeorological eddy covariance method inevitably leads to questions concerning inclusion or exclusion of advective flux contributions, in providing representative results. For process-oriented studies in which fluxes are linked to local physical parameters and up-scaled through numerical modeling efforts, advection represents a site-specific component which interferes with our ability to isolate local biochemical processes of interest, as represented by turbulent fluxes. Yet, outside of discarding data reflecting excessive advective interference, no method currently exists to disentangle these contributions on flux estimates. Here, we present a novel comprehensive numerical scheme to identify and separate out advective contributions to exchanges in the surface layer. Comparison between the presented method and conventional methodology on observations of sensible heat, latent heat and CO2-fluxes from a number of sites suggests the presence of absolute flux thresholds at |QSENS|=30 Wm−2, |QLAT|=16 Wm−2 and |FCO2|=2.0 μmol m−2 s−1 marking clear shifts in the influence of advection. Above the thresholds, the relative difference of flux estimates δ remained fixed at δ =5–25% suggesting arguably negligible advection influence. Below the thresholds, however, relative difference rises to δSENS=⟨ 51%|88%|225%⟩, δLAT=⟨14%|28%|99%⟩ and δCO2=⟨ 41%|83%|521%⟩, where bracketed values are the 13.6th percentile, 50th percentile (the median) and the 86.4th percentile respectively, suggesting non-negligible relative influence of advection on low flux estimates. The thresholds thus serve as lower limits to local-scale flux resolvability by conventional methodology. The presented method is shown to allow for flux estimation during severe signal disruption and to yield fewer estimates for an enclosed gas analyzer during low-flux conditions suggesting the presence of a lower detection limit with this particular instrument setup, as well as a superiority of open path gas analyzers, in low-flux environments. Overall the notion of a dynamic and generally non-negligible overlap of advective and turbulent frequency-wise flux contributions is confirmed, suggesting the inevitable indiscriminate inclusion/exclusion of both when setting a fixed averaging time according to conventional methodology, leading ultimately to misrepresentation of actual local fluxes.

Description: Global ocean biogeochemistry models currently employed in climate change projections use highly simplified representations of pelagic food webs. These food webs do not necessarily include critical pathways by which ecosystems interact with ocean biogeochemistry and climate. Here we present a global biogeochemical model which incorporates ecosystem dynamics based on the representation of ten plankton functional types (PFTs); six types of phytoplankton, three types of zooplankton, and heterotrophic bacteria. We improved the representation of zooplankton dynamics in our model through (a) the explicit inclusion of large, slow-growing zooplankton, and (b) the introduction of trophic cascades among the three zooplankton types. We use the model to quantitatively assess the relative roles of iron vs. grazing in determining phytoplankton biomass in the Southern Ocean High Nutrient Low Chlorophyll (HNLC) region during summer. When model simulations do not represent crustacean macrozooplankton grazing, they systematically overestimate Southern Ocean chlorophyll biomass during the summer, even when there was no iron deposition from dust. When model simulations included the developments of the zooplankton component, the simulation of phytoplankton biomass improved and the high chlorophyll summer bias in the Southern Ocean HNLC region largely disappeared. Our model results suggest that the observed low phytoplankton biomass in the Southern Ocean during summer is primarily explained by the dynamics of the Southern Ocean zooplankton community rather than iron limitation. This result has implications for the representation of global biogeochemical cycles in models as zooplankton faecal pellets sink rapidly and partly control the carbon export to the intermediate and deep ocean.

Description: The use of organic soils by agriculture involves drainage and tillage, and the resulting increase in C and N turnover can significantly affect their greenhouse gas balance. This study estimated annual fluxes of CH4 and N2O, and ecosystem respiration (Reco), from eight organic soils managed by agriculture. The sites were located in three regions representing different landscape types and climatic conditions, and three land use categories were covered (arable crops, AR, grass in rotation, RG, and permanent grass, PG). The normal management at each site was followed, except that no N inputs occurred during the monitoring period from August 2008 to October 2009. The stratified sampling strategy further included six sampling points in three blocks at each site. Environmental variables (precipitation, PAR, air and soil temperature, soil moisture, groundwater level) were monitored continuously and during sampling campaigns, where also groundwater samples were taken for analysis. Gaseous fluxes were monitored on a three-weekly basis, giving 51, 49 and 38 field campaigns for land use categories AR, PG and RG, respectively. Climatic conditions in each region during monitoring were representative as compared to 20-yr averages. Peat layers were shallow, typically 0.5 to 1 m, and with a pH of 4 to 5. At six sites annual emissions of N2O were in the range 3 to 24 kg N2O-N ha−1, but at two arable sites (spring barley, potato) net emissions of 38 and 61 kg N2O-N ha−1 were recorded. The two high-emitting sites were characterized by fluctuating groundwater, low soil pH and elevated groundwater SO42− concentrations. Annual fluxes of CH4 were generally small, as expected, ranging from 2 to 4 kg CH4 ha−1. However, two permanent grasslands had tussocks of Juncus effusus L. (soft rush) in sampling points that were consistent sources of CH4 throughout the year. Emission factors for organic soils in rotation and with permanent grass, respectively, were estimated to be 0.011 and 0.47 g m−2 for CH4, and 2.5 and 0.5 g m−2 for N2O. This first documentation of CH4 and N2O emissions from managed organic soils in Denmark confirms the levels and wide ranges of emissions previously reported for the Nordic countries. However, the stratified experimental design also identified links between gaseous emissions and site-specific conditions with respect to soil, groundwater and vegetation which point to areas of future research that may account for part of the variability and hence lead to improved emission factors or models.

Description: Estimating representative surface fluxes using eddy covariance leads invariably to questions concerning inclusion or exclusion of low-frequency flux contributions. For studies where fluxes are linked to local physical parameters and up-scaled through numerical modelling efforts, low-frequency contributions interfere with our ability to isolate local biogeochemical processes of interest, as represented by turbulent fluxes. No method currently exists to disentangle low-frequency contributions on flux estimates. Here, we present a novel comprehensive numerical scheme to identify and separate out low-frequency contributions to vertical turbulent surface fluxes. For high flux rates (|Sensible heat flux| 〉 40 Wm−2, |latent heat flux|〉 20 Wm−2 and |CO2 flux|〉 100 mmol m−2 d−1 we found that the average relative difference between fluxes estimated by ogive optimization and the conventional method was low (5–20%) suggesting negligible low-frequency influence and that both methods capture the turbulent fluxes equally well. For flux rates below these thresholds, however, the average relative difference between flux estimates was found to be very high (23–98%) suggesting non-negligible low-frequency influence and that the conventional method fails in separating low-frequency influences from the turbulent fluxes. Hence, the ogive optimization method is an appropriate method of flux analysis, particularly in low-flux environments.