Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Co2 Sequestration And Temperature Modulation By Plants On Green Roofs, Matthew L. Fumarola, Clema Balire, Darlene Panvini

Science University Research Symposium (SURS)

Green roofs can play a role in CO2 absorption and temperature modulation in urban areas as a means of countering the impacts of climate change and heat effects due to urbanization. While diverse plants can be found on green roofs, the different role they play in mediating these effects is not clear. This study, using constructed polyethylene tents around plants and bare soil sites, measured atmospheric CO2, soil temperature, relative humidity and air temperature for four species of plants located on Belmont University’s green roofs. The species were Sulfur Cosmos, Yucca, Hairawn Muhly, and Goldenrod. Three species, Yucca, Hairawn Muhly …

Impacts Of Wildfire And Landscape Factors On Organic Soil Properties In Arctic Tussock Tundra, Jiaying He, Dong Chen, Liza K. Jenkins, Tatiana V. Loboda

Michigan Tech Publications

Tundra ecosystems contain some of the largest stores of soil organic carbon among all biomes worldwide. Wildfire, the primary disturbance agent in Arctic tundra, is likely to impact soil properties in ways that enable carbon release and modify ecosystem functioning more broadly through impacts on organic soils, based on evidence from a recent extreme Anaktuvuk River Fire (ARF). However, comparatively little is known about the long-term impacts of typical tundra fires that are short-lived and transient. Here we quantitatively investigated how these transient tundra fires and other landscape factors affected organic soil properties, including soil organic layer (SOL) thickness, soil …

Effects Of The Sea Breeze Circulation On Soil Temperature Over Kuwait Using In Situ Observations And The Ecmwf Model, Hussain Alsarraf, Matthew V.D. Broeke, Hala Aljassar

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

Background: The mesoscale circulation over Kuwait is an important influence on changes in surface temperatures and soil temperatures.

Introduction: This paper presents two common summertime atmospheric features over Kuwait linking wind circulation to soil temperatures.

Methods: In this study, we use the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts ECMWF reanalysis ERA-Interim dataset to investigate effects of the synoptic scale and mesoscale circulations.

Results: The results show that a large-scale pressure gradient in summer typically leads to northerly winds over Kuwait, while a weak synoptic-scale pressure gradient leads to light easterly humid winds from the Persian Gulf, consistent with a mesoscale …

Detecting Soil Macrofauna Using Ground-Penetrating Radar, Melanie N. Stock, David J. Hart, Nicholas J. Balster

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

Fossorial amphibians spend up to ten months belowground, but research into this critical habitat has been impeded by a lack of noninvasive detection methods. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR), however, offers a promising tool because amphibians have theoretically strong electromagnetic (EM) contrasts relative to the soil matrix, and thus potentially high detectability. The objectives of this study were to (1) evaluate GPR by (2) experimentally-inducing three soil thermal regimes that promote stratification in the burrowing depths of 15 Eastern American Toads (Anaxyrus americanus americanus) during the winter of 2011–2012 in Madison, WI, USA. We calculated reflectability and established the unique …

Potential Of Satellite-Based Land Emissivity Estimates For The Detection Of High-Latitude Freeze And Thaw States, Satya Prakash, Hamid Norouzi, Marzi Azarderakhsh, Reginald Blake, Reza Khanbilvardi

Publications and Research

Reliable detection of freeze and thaw (FT) states is crucial for the terrestrial water cycle, biogeochemical transitions, carbon and methane feedback to the atmosphere, and for the surface energy budget and its associated impacts on the global climate system. This paper is novel in that for the first time a unique approach to examine the potential of passive microwave remotely sensed land emissivity and its added-values of being free from the atmospheric effects and being sensitive to surface characteristics is being applied to the detection of FT states for latitudes north of 35°N. Since accurate characterizations of the soil state …

Impact Of Hillslope-Scale Organization Of Topography, Soil Moisture, Soil Temperature, And Vegetation On Modeling Surface Microwave Radiation Emission, Alejandro N. Flores, Valeriy Y. Ivanov, Dara Entekhabi, Rafael L. Bras

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Microwave radiometry will emerge as an important tool for global remote sensing of near-surface soil moisture in the coming decade. In this modeling study, we find that hillslopescale topography (tens of meters) influences microwave brightness temperatures in a way that produces bias at coarser scales (kilometers). The physics underlying soil moisture remote sensing suggests that the effects of topography on brightness temperature observations are twofold: 1) the spatial distribution of vegetation, moisture, and surface and canopy temperature depends on topography and 2) topography determines the incidence angle and polarization rotation that the observing sensor makes with the local land surface. …

Crop Updates 2005 - Farming Systems, David Stephens, Nicola Telcik, Ross Kingwell, Wayne Pluske, Bill Bowden, Mike Collins, Frances Hoyle, D. V. Murphy, N. Milton, M. Osman, L. K. Abbott, W. R. Cookson, S. Darmawanto, Bill Crabtree, Geoff Anderson, Darren Kidson, Ross Brennan, Nick Drew, Craig Scanlan, Lisa Sherriff, Bob French, Reg Lunt, Jeff Russell, Angie Roe, Ian Maling, Matthew Adams, George Yan, Mohammad Hamza, Glen Riethmuller, Wal Anderson, Angela Loi, Phil Nichols, Clinton Revell, David Ferris, Phil Ward, Andrea Hills, Sally-Anne Penny, David Hall, Michael Robertson, Don Gaydon, Tress Walmsley, Caroline Peek, Megan Abrahams, Paul Raper, Richard O'Donnell, Trevor Lacey, Meredith Fairbanks, David Tennant, Cameron Weeks, Richard Quinlan, Alexandra Edward, Chris Carter, Doug Hamilton, Peter Tozer, Renaye Horne, Tracey Gianatti, Paul Carmody, Ian Foster, Michele John, Ross George, Imma Farré, Ian Kininmonth, Dennis Van Gool, Neil Coles, Bill Porter, Louise Barton, Richard Harper, Peter Ritson, Tony Beck, Chris Mitchell, Michael Hill, Fiona Barker-Reid, Will Gates, Ken Wilson, Rob Baigent, Ian Galbally, Mick Meyer, Ian Weeks, Traci Griffin, D. Rodriguez, M. Probust, M. Meyers, D. Chen, A. Bennett, W. Strong, R. Nussey, I Galbally, M. Howden

Crop Updates

This session covers forty four papers from different authors:

PLENARY

1. 2005 Outlook, David Stephens and Nicola Telcik, Department of Agriculture

FERTILITY AND NUTRITION

2. The effect of higher nitrogen fertiliser prices on rotation and fertiliser strategies in cropping systems, Ross Kingwell, Department of Agriculture and University of Western Australia

3. Stubble management: The short and long term implications for crop nutrition and soil fertility, Wayne Pluske, Nutrient Management Systems and Bill Bowden, Department of Agriculture

4. Stubble management: The pros and cons of different methods, Bill Bowden, Department of Agriculture, Western Australia and Mike Collins, …

Response Of Sagebrush Steppe Species To Elevated Co2 And Soil Temperature, Melissa S. Lucash, Blake Farnsworth, William E. Winner

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Elevated atmospheric CO₂ may cause long-term changes in the productivity and species composition of the sagebrush steppe. Few studies, however, have evaluated the effects of increased CO₂ on growth and physiology of species important to this ecosystem. Since the response of plants to elevated CO₂ may be limited by environmental factors, soil temperature was also examined to determine if low soil temperatures limit CO₂ response. To determine how CO₂ and soil temperature affect the growth of species native to the sagebrush steppe, bottlebrush squirreltail [Elymus elymoides (Raf.) Swezey], Thurber needlegrass (Stipa thurberiana Piper), …

Tight Coupling Between Soil Moisture And The Surface Radiation Budget In Semiarid Environments: Implications For Landatmosphere Interactions, Eric E. Small, Shirley A. Kurc

Environmental Science and Geology Faculty Research Publications

Observations are used to examine how soil moisture influences the surface radiation budget, ground heat flux, and available energy in semiarid environments. Defining this relationship is critical to understand interactions between the land surface and the atmosphere, in particular assessing if a feedback exists between soil moisture and rainfall anomalies. We use two summers of data collected from semiarid grassland and shrubland ecosystems in central New Mexico. The response of surface radiation budget components and other variables to soil moisture variations are quantified via linear regression. Then, the variations are scaled over the observed range of soil moisture (15% volumetric …

Comparison Of Water And Temperature Distribution Profiles Under Sand Tube Irrigation, Masoud Meshkat, Richard C. Warner, Stephen R. Workman

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

Drip irrigation is one of the most efficient systems in delivering water to the plant root zone. Research has shown that the saturated, or nearly saturated, surface beneath the emitter may increase evaporation thereby reducing the irrigation efficiency. To increase the efficiency of surface applied drip irrigation on permanent tree crops a sand tube irrigation (STI) method was developed and tested. The sand tube method consists of removing a soil core beneath the emitter and filling the void with coarse sand. A weighing lysimeter was designed and instrumented to directly measure temporal evaporation during irrigation and for a period of …

Soil Salinity Assessment Using The Em38: Field Operating Instructions And Data Interpretation, D L. Bennett, Richard George, Arjen Ryder

Agriculture reports

The Geonics EM38® is a portable instrument designed to take in situ field measurements of soil conductivity to about 1.5 m depth. If used correctly, the EM38 allows rapid, reliable estimates of soil salinity to be obtained from large areas without intensive soil sampling. The meter is very useful for delineating the extent and relative severity of saline areas. Although soil salinity has the dominant effect on the EM38 signal, other soil physical factors such as clay content, moisture content and temperature can affect the response. If the EM38 measurements are to be related to plant performance and used for …

Growing Season Air-Soil Temperature Relationships At Lincoln, Nebraska, Ralph E. Neild

Historical Research Bulletins of the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station

This study concerns the use of weekly average air temperature for predicting weekly average soil temperature under different conditions of surface cover during different times of year. Probabilities of weekly average air temperature for Lincoln as well as other Nebraska locations are available. These probabilities and the soil temperature prediction equations may be used in determining expected soil temperatures.