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Nature Climate Change highlights EESA research on soil organic matter decomposition temperature sensitivity1 min read

by Christina Procopiou on October 9, 2020

Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division

A recent paper by Jinyun Tang and Bill Riley that analyzed how soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition is affected by temperature was highlighted in the October issue of Nature Climate Change. CO2 released from soil is one of the largest actively cycling components of the global carbon cycle and strongly affects predicted 21st century climate change. Scientists study these carbon-climate feedbacks using Earth System Models, such as DOE’s E3SM, which represent a wide variety of terrestrial ecosystem processes, including (SOM) decomposition. 

This new research addresses the long-standing problem of how to estimate and interpret the temperature sensitivity of SOM decomposition, an important problem as the climate continues to warm. Applied over the past several decades in hundreds of studies, the traditional approach involves warming soils at different temperatures in the laboratory to increase soil respiration, and applying an assumed model structure to interpret those measurements.

Tang and Riley showed that this approach leads to very large uncertainty (termed equifinality) in inferences of SOM decomposition temperature sensitivity. They also showed that using new model structures that explicitly represent microbial processes can help reduce this uncertainty and improve interpretation of these types of experiments. Their group is working to integrate these new types of model structures into E3SM’s land model.

Riley, a senior scientist in the Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division at Berkeley Lab, said that the findings discussed in their paper for Biogeochemistry Letters could improve the ability of climate modelers to accurately predict the impacts future climate warming will have on the large amount of carbon stored globally in soil.

News & Events

EESA Celebrates International Day of Women & Girls in Science2 min read

February 24, 2021

On 11 February, the United Nations, Berkeley Lab, and other organizations worldwide marked the 6th annual International Day of Women and Girls in Science. The day focuses on the reality that science and gender equality are both vital for the achievement of international development goals, such as climate change mitigation. Susan Hubbard, Associate Laboratory Director…

EESA Scientists Contribute to DOE GTO Research on Critical Minerals2 min read

  Scientists in the Energy Geosciences Division are contributing to research sponsored by the DOE Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) investigating the potential extraction of lithium, rare earth elements, and other critical minerals that are dissolved constituents of hot geothermal brines that are used to produce  electricity. Far more information is currently needed, for instance, about…

CSA News Calls Out Recent NGEE-Tropics Research2 min read

February 22, 2021

  CSA News, the magazine of three related societies: the Agronomy Society of America, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America, published an article in its January 2021 issue describing research led by research scientist Robinson Negrón Juárez, on behalf of the NGEE-Tropics project. The article highlights a paper published recently…

Two EESA Women Chosen for the 2020 Women @ The Lab Awards2 min read

February 9, 2021

Two EESA women, Sandy Chin and Laura Nielsen Lammers, were chosen for the 2020 Women @ The Lab awards. They join an esteemed cohort of 15 women across Berkeley Lab who have made and continue to make significant contributions in the areas of leadership, science, operations, mentorship, and outreach.  Sandy Chin, who recently assumed the…

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