Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division

Negron-Juarez et al. find that most ESMs show carbon uptake bias for tropical forests

October 27, 2015

Palm tree forest at El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico. Photo by Deb Agarwal. September 13, 2014.

Robinson Negrón-Juárez, Charles Koven, William Riley, Ryan Knox, and Jeff Chambers, researchers in EESA and CESD, published a letter in Environmental Research Letters showing that most earth system models (ESM) overpredict tropical forest biomass in response to increased forest productivity. In contrast, observations show that as tropical forest productivity increases, trees do not continue to store CO2 at…

Post Announcements Climate & Carbon Sciences Program Climate & Carbon Sciences Program Area Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division Climate Sciences Department In The Press Publication Research Highlight

Which processes most strongly govern terrestrial carbon cycle feedbacks in Earth system models?

October 12, 2015

Graphic comparing various turnover times for carbon in vegetation and soil carbon pools.

ESMs (Earth system models) are crucial in estimating climate sensitivity, but show large uncertainty in carbon cycle feedbacks. A key step of reducing this uncertainty is to identify the processes that govern carbon-climate and carbon-concentration feedbacks driven by changes in terrestrial carbon stocks. Are these changing carbon stocks driven by changes to inputs, or changes…

Post Announcements Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division Climate Sciences Department Terrestrial Ecosystem Science Program

Airborne Campaign in the Icy Arctic

October 7, 2015

Gulfstream-159 (G-1) research plane from the ARM Aerial Facility - in flight.

In the News: Sébastien Biraud led an ARM-ACME V team through a 16-week airborne campaign to collect data over the tundra of Alaska’s North Slope. The team flew 38 flights, just 500 feet above ground, from June 1 to September 15, using a Gulfstream-159 (G-1) research aircraft from the ARM Aerial Facility. Most flights went over…

Post Announcements Climate & Carbon Sciences Program Area Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division Climate Sciences Department Terrestrial Ecosystem Science Program

New Research: Feedback between Permafrost Carbon and Climate

October 5, 2015

Charlie Koven, scientist in Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division, discusses newly published research results in LBNL’s News Center today. As global warming causes soil temperatures to increase, some of the billions of tons of carbon frozen in Arctic permafrost will will be released into the atmosphere, and accelerate climate change. This is a big unknown. Now there’s a…

Post Announcements Climate and Atmosphere Processes Program Domain Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division Climate Modeling Program Climate Sciences Department Research Highlight

O’Brien Fog Paper Featured in EOS

December 16, 2014

A paper that ESD Climate Scientist Travis O’Brien co-authored is featured on this week’s cover of the weekly AGU journal Eos, Transactions of the AGU—just in time for the AGU Meeting!

Post Announcements Awards Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division Ecology Department

The PhyloChip Wins a 2008 R&D 100 Award

July 9, 2008

In July 2008, the Berkeley Lab PhyloChip won an R&D100 award--known as the "Oscars of Invention"--as one of the top 100 technologies in the country for the past year. What follows here is the core text submitted for the award.

Post Awards Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division Climate Sciences Department

The Carbon Explorer Takes the Prize

July 5, 2006

ESD is proud to announce that the Carbon Explorer, created and developed by a scientific team headed by ESD's Jim Bishop, has won one of R&D Magazine's coveted "R&D 100" Awards, as one of the 100 most significant proven scientific advances for 2005.