473 research outputs found
Parametrization of Peatland Hydraulic Properties for the Canadian Land Surface Scheme
No full textA hydraulic parametrization is developed for peatland environments in the Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS). Three wetland soil classes account for the typical variation in the hydraulic characteristics of the uppermost 0.5 m of organic soils. Review of the literature reveals that saturated hydraulic conductivity varies from a median of 1.0 x 10-7 m/s in deeply humified sapric peat to 2.8 x 10-4 m/s in relatively undecomposed fibric peat. Average pore volume fraction ranges from 0.83 to 0.93. Parameters have been designed for the soil moisture characteristic curves for fibric, hemic and sapric peat using the Campbell (1974) equation employed in CLASS, and the van Genuchten (1980) formulation. There is little difference in modelled soil moisture between the two formulations within the range of conditions normally found in peatlands. Validation of modelled water table depth and peat temperature is performed for a fen in northern Québec and a bog in north-central Minnesota. The new parametrization results in a more realistic simulation of these variables in peatlands than the previous version of CLASS, in which unrealistic mineral soil "equivalents" were used for wetland soil climate modelling. (English) ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]; Un paramétrage de nature hydraulique est développé pour des sols organiques du schéma CLASS («Canadian LAnd Surface Scheme»). Trois classes de nouveaux sols de tourbières rendent compte de la variation typique des caractéristiques hydrauliques pour des sols organiques du 0,5 premier mètre. Une revue de la littérature des paramètres hydrauliques révèle que la conductivité hydraulique saturée s'écarte de la médiane de 1,0 x 10-7 m/s pour une tourbe humide saprique profonde jusqu'à 2,8 x 10-4 m/s pour une tourbe fibrique relativement moins décomposée. La porosité moyenne varie de 0,83 à 0,93. Des paramètres ont été développés afin d'obtenir des courbes caractéristiques d'humidité du sol pour la tourbe fibrique, mésique et saprique, en utilisant le schéma de Campbell (1974) et celui de van Genuchten (1980). Aucune différence significative n'a été détectée dans les deux schémas lorsqu'on les utilise dans des conditions normales trouvées dans les tourbes. On a effectué la validation de la modélisation du niveau phréatique et de la température de la tourbe pour une tourbière carex (fen) dans le nord du Québec et une tourbe à sphaigne (bog) dans le centre nord du Minnesota. Le nouveau paramétrage produit une simulation plus réaliste que la version antérieure du schéma CLASS, qui utilisait des paramètres non réalistes du sol minéral pour modéliser le climat du sol humide. (French) ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]; Copyright of Atmosphere -- Ocean (Canadian Meteorological & Oceanographic Society) is the property of Canadian Meteorological & Oceanographic Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)19580530Source type: Electronic(1)http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edo&AN=19580530&site=eds-live&scope=sit
Investigating the applicability of end-member mixing analysis (EMMA) across scale: A study of eight small, nested catchments in a temperate forested watershed
No full textCurrent interest in multicatchment hydrologic studies challenges the use of geochemical mixing models across scale, where changes in stream water chemistry from catchment to catchment may indicate (1) changes in the proportional contributions of end-members, (2) changes in the geochemical signatures of end-members in space, or (3) changes in the geochemical signatures of end-members in time. In this study we examine stream water chemistry from a series of eight nested catchments in a 1.47 km2 temperate forest watershed in southern Quebec for evidence of contributing end-members
Modelling peatland soil climate and methane flux using the Canadian Land Surface Scheme
No full textA soil climate parameterization is designed for peatland environments in the Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS). Three wetland soil classes account for the variation in the hydraulic characteristics of organic soils. Saturated hydraulic conductivity varies from a median of 1.0 x 10-7 m/s in deeply humidified sapric peat to 2.8 x 10-4 m/s in relatively undecomposed fibric peat. Average pore volume fraction ranges from 0.83 to 0.93. Parameters are derived for the soil moisture characteristic curves of fibric, hemic and sapric peat, using the Campbell (1974) equation employed in CLASS, and the van Genuchten (1980) formulation. Validation of modelled water table depth and peat temperature is performed for a fen in northern Quebec and a bog in north-central Minnesota. The new parameterization results in more realistic simulation than the previous version of CLASS, which was constrained to using mineral soil properties to approximate those of organic soils.Two approaches are used to model methane emissions from northern peatlands using the new soil climate parameterization in CLASS. In the first module, the multiple regression equation of Dise et al. (1993) is used to simulate daily methane emissions from water table depth and peat temperature. In the process-based module, methane flux is divided into its component parts: plant transport, diffusion and ebullition. Each of these transport mechanisms is determined by methane concentrations, which are calculated from a series of processes related to peat temperature, water table level and rooting depth. The daily methane emissions predicted by the two models are similar and correlate reasonably with observations from a bog in north-central Minnesota
The hydrology and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) biogeochemistry in a boreal peatland /
No full textA hydrological and biogeochemical study was undertaken at the Mer Bleue bog, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada from May 22, 1998 to May 21, 1999. Basin runoff was generated by groundwater discharge at the peatland margin, and groundwater discharge was controlled by hydraulic gradients and horizontal hydraulic conductivities (Kh). Flux of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) measured at the basin outflow was 8.3 g C m-2 yr-1 and compared to within 23% of DOC flux estimated using a Dupuit approximation of seepage during the ice-free season. Annual DOC flux was 11% of the annual carbon sink.Flownet analysis showed that seasonal patterns of groundwater flow were controlled by boundary condition changes that resulted from precipitation and evapotranspiration events. A pattern of recharge was most common over the hydrological year, but a discharge pattern was observed during a 40 day groundwater flow reversal. Evaluation of the peatland recharge-discharge function using in situ sodium concentrations and a diffusion model revealed that the peatland is a long-term recharge system. It is hypothesized that peatland biogeochemical function is controlled by long-term recharge despite annual occurrence of groundwater flow reversals
Carbon dioxide and methane fluxes and organic carbon accumulation in old field and northern temperate forest plantation soils
No full textCarbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) fluxes from the soil surface, and concentrations within the soil profile, were measured between June 1998 and Sept. 1999 at four adjacent forest plantations and an old field in Nepean, Ontario. The objectives of this study were to quantify seasonal CO2 and CH4 fluxes from the soil surface and within the soil profile to determine the effect of soil moisture and temperature, and forest age and species on the exchange, and establish a chronosequence of organic carbon accumulation in the forest plantations and the old field soils.Dynamic and static chamber techniques were used to measure surface fluxes of CO2 and CH4, respectively, and soil gas concentrations were sampled with probes. In the old field and forest plantations, surface soil CO2 flux ranged from 2.9 to 27 g CO2 m-2 d-1 and 2.0 to 39 g CO2 m -2 d-1 respectively. Significant differences due to age and species of plantation were observed. Seasonal variations in CO2 efflux from the soil surface and within the soil profile were related to variation in soil temperature and moisture. Uptake of CH4 was observed at all sites and there was no significant differences in flux due to vegetation type or age. Maximum rate of CH4 consumption was 6.3 mg CH4 m-2 d-1. Methane uptake was positively related to soil moisture conditions.The carbon content of the soil increased in all sites following the establishment of vegetation on sandy parent material. Carbon content was greatest in the upper soil profile. Rates of carbon accumulation ranged from 109 to 426 g m-2 y-1. Soil carbon increased with increasing age of plantation during the first 30 years following the establishment of vegetation on parent material, but declined as the forest plantation matured
Distributed human computation framework for linked data co-reference resolution
No full textDistributed Human Computation (DHC) is a technique used to solve computational problems by incorporating the collaborative effort of a large number of humans. It is also a solution to AI-complete problems such as natural language processing. The Semantic Web with its root in AI is envisioned to be a decentralised world-wide information space for sharing machine-readable data with minimal integration costs. There are many research problems in the Semantic Web that are considered as AI-complete problems. An example is co-reference resolution, which involves determining whether different URIs refer to the same entity. This is considered to be a significant hurdle to overcome in the realisation of large-scale Semantic Web applications. In this paper, we propose a framework for building a DHC system on top of the Linked Data Cloud to solve various computational problems. To demonstrate the concept, we are focusing on handling the co-reference resolution in the Semantic Web when integrating distributed datasets. The traditional way to solve this problem is to design machine-learning algorithms. However, they are often computationally expensive, error-prone and do not scale. We designed a DHC system named iamResearcher, which solves the scientific publication author identity co-reference problem when integrating distributed bibliographic datasets. In our system, we aggregated 6 million bibliographic data from various publication repositories. Users can sign up to the system to audit and align their own publications, thus solving the co-reference problem in a distributed manner. The aggregated results are published to the Linked Data Cloud
Simulating northern peatland-atmosphere carbon dioxide exchange with changes in climate
No full textAbout half of the global wetlands are located between 50-70° N, where climate change is projected to be greater than other regions. More than 95% of northern wetlands are peatlands. The majority of peatlands accumulate soil carbon (C) because, on average, net primary production (NPP) exceeds decomposition. Peatlands store ~ 450 G t soil carbon (1Gt C=1015 g C), a mass equivalent to about 20% of global terrestrial soil C, or half of atmospheric C. The carbon exchange between peatlands and the atmosphere is sensitive to climate variability and change because of the tight coupling with hydrology and ecosystem biogeochemistry. A critical question of this thesis is "Will northern peatlands continue to function as C sink under the projected climate change?"I use a modelling approach to answer this question. Firstly, a peatland C cycling model, the McGill Wetland Model (MWM), originally developed to simulate the C dynamics of ombrotrophic bogs, was modified, parameterized and evaluated for the simulation of the CO2 biogeochemistry of fens. Three modifications were made: (1) a function describing the impact of soil moisture on the optimal gross primary production (GPP); (2) a scheme to partition the peat profile into oxic and anoxic C compartments based on the effective root depth as a function of daily sedge NPP; and (3) a modified function describing the fen moss water dynamics. Secondly, I have examined the effect of bog microtopography on the simulation of ecosystem-level C cycling and found model processes scale linearly, so "parameter" upscaling can be used in regional scale assessments. Thirdly, I successfully evaluated a coupled Wetland version of Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS3W) and MWM (called CLASS3W-MWM) for bogs and fens. The sensitivity analysis indicates that northern peatlands are thermally and hydrologically conservative and the combination of changes in temperature, precipitation and double CO2 concentration is much different than the sensitivity of peatlands to each environmental variable on their own.Finally, I used CLASS3W-MWM to do a first-order experiment on how the CO2 exchange in northern peatlands might change under the changing climate. For future climate, I adjusted the site "measured" climate variables by the climate anomalies estimated by the CCCma-GCM3.0 for three time slices (2030, 2060 and 2100) using four different climate scenarios (A1B, A2, B1 and Commit). These simulations showed that bogs and fens have significantly different responses to climate change, particularly that fens are more sensitive to environmental change than bogs. At 2100, the bog remains a C sink for all the climate scenarios assessed because a significant increase in GPP still offset, to a smaller extent, the large increase in total ecosystem respiration (TER). However, by 2100, the fen switches to a C source for two scenarios (A1B and A2), due to a dramatic decrease in GPP and a significant increase in TER resulting from water stress linked to a large drop of water table depth.Environ la moitié de l'ensemble des tourbières sont situées entre 50-70° N, là où les changements climatique prévus risquent d'être plus important que dans les autres régions. Plus de 95% des milieux humides nordiques sont des tourbières. La majorité des tourbières accumule du carbone (C) puisqu'en moyenne, la production nette primaire (NPP) excède la décomposition. Les tourbières accumulent environ 450 G t de C (1Gt C=1015 g C), une masse équivalente à environ 20% du C terrestre, ou la moitié du C atmosphérique. L'échange de C entre les tourbières et l'atmosphère est sensible aux changements climatiques et varie en fonction du lien entre leur hydrologie et la biogéochimie de l'écosystème. Une des questions critiques de cette thèse est « est-ce que les tourbières du nord demeureront des puits de C malgré les changements climatiques projetés? ».J'utilise une approche de modélisation pour répondre à cette question. Premièrement, le modèle représentant le cycle du C dans les tourbière, le McGill Wetland Model (MWM), développé à l'origine pour simuler la dynamique du C dans les tourbières ombrotrophiques, a été modifié et les paramètres ajustés et évalués afin de simuler la biogéochimie du dioxide de carbone (CO2) des tourbières oligotrophiques. Trois modifications ont été faites : (1) une fonction décrivant l'impact de l'humidité du sol sur la production primaire brute (GPP) optimale; (2) un schéma pour partitionner le profil de la tourbière selon les compartiments oxiques et anoxiques du C basé sur la profondeur effective des racines en fonction de la NPP journalière du carex; et (3) une fonction modifiée décrivant la dynamique de l'eau de la tourbe en milieu oligotrophique. Deuxièmement, j'ai examiné l'effet de la microtopographie de la tourbière sur la simulation du cycle du C à l'échelle de l'écosystème et trouvé les processus du modèle à l'échelle linéaire, pouvant ainsi modifier les paramètres en changeant l'échelle utilisée pour l'évaluation à l'échelle régionale. Troisièmement, j'ai évalué avec succès une version couplée du modèle Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS3W) et MWM, nommé (CLASS3W-MWM) pour les types de tourbières ombrotrophiques et oligotrophiques. L'analyse de sensibilité indique que les tourbières du nord sont conservatrices au niveau thermal et hydrologique et la combinaison du changement de température, de précipitation et une double concentration de CO2 est très différente par rapport à la sensibilité de chaque variable individuellement.Finalement, j'ai utilisé le CLASS3W-MWM pour faire une expérience de premièr-ordre vérifiant comment l'échange de CO2 dans les tourbières du nord peuvent être modifiés sous un climat changeant. Pour les climats futurs, j'ai ajusté la variable climatique du site « mesuré » par les anomalies climatiques estimées par le CCma-GCM3.0 pour trois périodes de temps (2030, 2060 et 2100) en utilisant quatre différents scénarios climatiques (A1B, A2, B1 et Commit). Ces simulations ont montré que les tourbières oligotrophiques et ombrotrophiques ont des réponses significativement différentes aux changements climatiques, particulièrement les tourbières oligotrophiques, qui sont plus sensibles au changements environnementaux que les tourbières ombrotrophiques. En 2100, la tourbière ombrotrophique demeure un puits de C durant la totalité du scénario puisqu'une augmentation significative de la GPP compensait toujours, même si de manière moindre, l'augmentation importante de la respiration de l'écosystème (TER). Toutefois, en 2100, la tourbière oligotrophique est devenue une source de C pour deux scénarios (A1B et A2), dû à une diminution drastique de la GPP et une augmentation du TER résultant du stress hydrique lié à une grande diminution de la profondeur de la nappe phréatique. f
Detection of Cognitive Features from Web Resources in Support of Cultural Modeling and Analysis
No full textThe World Wide Web serves as a valuable source of culture-relevant information, which can be used to support cultural modeling and analysis activities. Part of the challenge in exploiting the Web as a source of culture-relevant information relates to the need to detect and extract information about beliefs, attitudes, and values from a variety of different resources. The Web thus features a rich variety of information resources, and these are seldom categorized with respect to the dimensions in which cultural analysts are interested. Exploiting the Web as a source of culture-relevant information therefore requires techniques and approaches that enable cultural analysts to extract relevant information and organize extracted content in various ways. In this paper, we outline an approach to assist cultural analysts in the extraction and organization of relevant information. We show techniques that can be used to extract information about the attitudes, beliefs, and values of individuals, and how this data can, in turn, be used to support cultural modeling and analysis
Improved estimates of carbon dioxide emissions from drained peatlands support a reduction in emission factor
No full textAbstract Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Annex 1 countries must report annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from peatlands drained for extraction. However, the Tier 1 emission factor (EF) provided in the IPCC 2014 Wetland Supplement is based mainly on warm season data from a limited number of sites. Here we evaluate the current IPCC EF and revise it with newly published data. The updated EF is 2.46 ± 0.25 t C ha−1 yr−1, a 12% reduction and a threefold decrease in the confidence interval compared to the current IPCC (2014) EF. We generate a Tier 3 EF, 1.4 ± 0.25 t C ha−1 yr−1 for a typical extraction site in eastern Canada using numerical CoupModel that explicitly considers seasonality and interannual climatic variability, and suggest how to account for seasonality for the previously published EFs. This reduction has implications for comparing alternatives to peat-based growing substrates, the assessment of offsets, and possible punitive carbon taxes or cap-and-trade schemes
Net carbon accumulation of a high-latitude permafrost palsa mire similar to permafrost-free peatlands
No full textPalsa mires, nutrient poor permafrost peatlands common in subarctic regions, store a significant amount of carbon (C) and it has been hypothesized their net ecosystem C balance (NECB) is sensitive to climate change. Over two years we measured the NECB for Stordalen palsa mire and found it to accumulate 46 g C m(-2) yr(-1). While Stordalen NECB is comparable to nutrient poor peatlands without permafrost, the component fluxes differ considerably in magnitude. Specifically, Stordalen had both lower growing season CO2 uptake and wintertime CO2 losses, but importantly also low dissolved organic carbon exports and hydrocarbon (mainly methane) emissions. Restricted C losses from palsa mires are likely to have facilitated C accumulation of unproductive subarctic permafrost peatlands. Continued climate change and permafrost thaw is likely to amplify several component fluxes, with an uncertain overall effect on NECB - highlighting the necessity for projections of high-latitude C storage to consider all C fluxes. Citation: Olefeldt, D., N. T. Roulet, O. Bergeron, P. Crill, K. Backstrand, and T. R. Christensen (2012), Net carbon accumulation of a high-latitude permafrost palsa mire similar to permafrost-free peatlands, Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L03501, doi: 10.1029/2011GL050355
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