Contacts:
Julie Chao, , c-415-318-9940
Dan Krotz, , c-510-220-8529
Berkeley Lab Researchers at AGU
Climate ChangeDetection and Prediction,Subsurface Energy,
Extreme Climate Events, and ArcticEcosystems Among Many Talks
Berkeley Lab scientists will touch on multiple research areas at this year’s AGU meeting. Topics including climate modeling challenges,projects on Arctic permafrost, and subsurface energy possibilities are but some of the areas being discussed. And, Berkeley Lab’s Earth & Environmental Sciences Areawillbe hosting Meet A Scientist sessions throughout the week at booth #1005.
Monday, Dec. 14
10:50-11:05 AMMOSCONEWEST 2006
Modeling Cesium-137 Transport in Forested Fukushima Watersheds
The 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in Japan resulted in a significant dissemination of cesium-137 (Cs-137) over a wide area west of the plant, including the contamination of many watersheds and the subsequent evacuation of many communities. Today approximately 90% of on-land Cs-137 fallout following the accident resides in the upper 5 cm of forest soils. While this can be partially attributed to the forested composition of the area, there is also difficulty in cleanup efforts in these regions due to a lack of understanding and predictive capability of radioisotopes transport at the catchment to watershed scale. High fidelity, high resolution numerical modeling techniques in conjunction with parallel high performance computing is required to accurately determine transport and feedbacks in these complex systems.
Speaker: Erica Siirila-Woodburn
1:55-2:10MOSCONE WEST 3018
Integrated Technology for Deep Boreholes: Modular Borehole Monitoring
Understanding the impacts caused by engineered activities in the deep subsurface, such as waste disposal, necessitates a comprehensive borehole monitoring strategy. Validation of remote sensing data, along with increasing data spatial resolution, requires measurements from boreholes that penetrate the formations of interest. Unfortunately, the high cost of drilling deep wellbores and deploying instrumentation systems limits the number of dedicated monitoring borings as well as limits the technologies that can be incorporated in a borehole completion. We recently completed a Modular Borehole Monitoring (MBM) Program to develop a robust suite of well-based tools optimized for subsurface monitoring of CO2 injected into sedimentary basins. These tools included seismic sensing, temperature sensing, in-situ fluid sampling and in-situ fluid pressure measurement as part of a comprehensive well-based monitoring program.
Speaker: Thomas Daley
4:00-4:15 MOSCONE WEST 3002
The Relevance of Climate Change Detection and Attribution for Loss and Damage Policy
The concept of loss and damage (L&D), the residual adverse impacts of climate change beyond what can be addressed by adaptation, has featured as a central component of recent discussions on international climate policy, most notably in negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. However, it remains unclear what sort of scientific evidence will be required to inform L&D activities, including with respect to issues of responsibility, liability, compensation, and financing. Possible types of scientific evidence include simple observation of the occurrence of weather-related disaster, understanding of causation and the role of anthropogenic emissions. In this presentation we will discuss these questions in detail and consider the implications.
Speaker: Dáithí Stone
Tuesday, Dec. 15
12:30 PM - 01:30 PMMOSCONE WEST2003
Town Hall on DOE’s Trait-Based Modeling Approach for Next Generation Ecosystem Experiments (NGEE)
Understanding and predicting how ecosystems change and interact with climate is challenging the climate modeling community to adequately represent vegetative functions. Current land models typically assume small numbers of plant “types” based upon similar characteristics/roles in ecosystem function. This functional type approach limits our ability to represent dynamic changes in response to climate or environment. A new framework is being developed by DOE’s NGEE’s with the Accelerated Climate Model for Energy (ACME) that represents plants using trait-based methods, which dynamically represent key vegetation characteristics. This town hall will highlight current developments in trait-based modeling approaches and discuss future research opportunities.
Speaker: Lara Kueppers
5:45 PM - 06:00 PMMOSCONE WEST 3004
Measuring the Impact of Rising CO2and CH4on the Surface Energy Balance
We use observations at the North Slope of Alaska and Southern Great Plains ARM sites to improve understanding both of the distribution of CO2and CH4and their influence on the surface energy balance. We use aircraft and ground-based in situ data to characterize the temporal distribution of these greenhouse gases, and spectroscopic observations to derive their collocated surface radiative forcing. Implications are discussed for how advanced spectroscopic remote sensing measurements of CH4can be used to quantify the impact of fossil fuel extraction on surface energy budget.
Speaker: Daniel Feldman
6:15-7:15MOSCONE WEST 2004
Town Hall on Revolutionizing Utilization of the Earth's Subsurface for America's Energy Future: the DOE Subsurface Crosscut Initiative (SubTER)
The earth's subsurface supplies more than 80% of America's total energy needs, including through oil and gas and geothermal strategies. It also provides vast potential for safe storage of CO2and disposal of nuclear waste. The complexity and depth of subsurface systems pose challenges for predictive understanding and optimized, sustainable utilization of its resources. The US DOE and National Laboratories are working with university and industry partners to advance an innovative crosscutting Subsurface Initiative. The initiative, also called SubTER (Subsurface Technology and Engineering and Research, Development and Demonstration), is focused on revolutionizing sustainable subsurface energy production and storage through transformational improvements in the ability to access, characterize, predict and adaptively manipulate fracture and flow processes over scales from nanometers to kilometers. Stop by the exhibit hall to learn more at booth # 1104, all week.
Convener: Susan Hubbard
Thursday, Dec. 17
9:00-9:15 AMMOSCONE WEST3003
Diagnosing Possible Anthropogenic Contributions to Colorado Floods in September 2013.
Unusually heavy rainfall occurred over the Colorado Front Range during the second week of September 2013, with record or near-record totals recorded in several locations. The resulting floods impacted several thousands of people and many homes, roads, and businesses. A recent study finds that, given very little change in the large-scale weather pattern, there is an increase in atmospheric water vapor over northeast Colorado under anthropogenic climate warming. This leads to a substantial increase in the magnitude and odds of heavy rainfall occurring over northeast Colorado during the rainy week of September 2013. Here we develop this work by including a hydrological modeling component in order to investigate any anthropogenic influence on the actual flood magnitude and occurrence across the South Platte basin during that time.
Speaker: Pardeep Pall
12:30 PM- 1:30 PMMOSCONE WEST 2004
Town Hall: The AmeriFlux Network: Celebrating Its 20th Anniversary
Next year marks theAmeriFlux Network’s 20th anniversary. Since its launch in 1996 with 15 sites, more than 200 sites have joined the network, linking ecosystem-flux and process-scale studies across the Americas. The DOE AmeriFlux Management Project (ameriflux.lbl.gov) serves the community of flux sites and data users, enhancing data quality, innovative measurements, and synthesis. Join the town hall to hear news about the network, exchange ideas, learn about December’s major new data release, and participate in this kickoff of 20th anniversary activities.
Speakers: Margaret Torn Sebastien Biraud
Deb Agarwal Gilberto Pastorello
1:55-2:10MOSCONE WEST 2004
Multi-scale Evidence of Large CO2and CH4Emissions from Permafrost During Spring Thaw in Northern Alaska
Arctic warming will amplify climate change especially if thawing tundra emits increasingly greater amounts of CO2and CH4due to rising temperatures in the coming decades. The few observations of tundra carbon fluxes during snowmelt suggest that there may be large releases during spring thaw, but little is known about the underlying mechanisms and whether emissions of greenhouse gases are widespread enough to influence atmospheric concentrations. To address this question we employed a multi-scale approach, including ecosystem-scale measurements, a mechanistic soil-core thawing experiment, and airborne observations of atmospheric carbon concentrations. A controlled laboratory experiment revealed that when frozen permafrost was exposed to warming temperatures, it released an immediate, large pulse of CO2and CH4that had been trapped under the surface ice.
Speaker: Naama Raz Yaseef
Friday, Dec. 18
10:20 - 10:35 MOSCONE WEST3008
Data Informatics for the Detection and Attribution of Extreme Climate Events
The potential for increasing frequency and intensity of extremephenomena including downpours, heat waves, and tropical cyclonesconstitutes one of the primary risks of climate change for society andthe environment. The challenge of characterizing these risks is thatextremes represent the "tails" of distributions of atmosphericphenomena and are, by definition, highly localized and typicallyrelatively transient. Therefore very large volumes of observationaldata and projections of future climate are required to quantify theirproperties in a robust manner. We describe examples of the suite of techniques the climate community is developing to address these analytical challenges, including massively parallel methods for detecting and trackingatmospheric rivers and cyclones.
Speaker: Bill Collins
Berkeley Lab’s Earth & Environmental Sciences Presents
Meet the Scientists: Booth # 1005 and 1104, Moscone North
Tuesday through Friday, Berkeley Lab scientists will be available at the Earth Environmental Sciences booth for conversations about their research. Berkeley Lab is developing 21st century approaches and scientific understanding relevant to both energy and the environment, including geothermal, nuclear waste, and geosciences, as well as fundamental research in climate studies, hydrogeology, and microbial ecology. A hallmark of the Lab’s research is considering process interactions occurring within and across many Earth system compartments and scales.
For a complete list of scientists, stop by booth 1005 or 1104.