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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 469 records · Page 26
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2019

The conservation value of forest fragments in the increasingly agrarian landscape of Sumatra

Throughout the world, tropical rainforests are being destroyed at an alarming rate, reducing many unprotected habitats to small fragments of remnant forests within the cleared landscape. Understanding the best way to provide wildlife habitat amid changing landscapes is essential for land use planning, especially in biodiversity hotspots like Indonesia. However, little is known about the conservation significance and mammalian use of forest fragments in Sumatra. In this study, camera trap surveys were conducted within Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park and five surrounding forest fragments, and species composition metrics were used to compare their use. Twenty-eight species of mammals were found in the forest and 21 in the surrounding fragments. The fragments harbored a subset of the species found within the primary forest, as well as several species not observed in the forest. Critically endangered species such as Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) and Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) were found in the fragments, along with species of conservation concern such as marbled cat (Pardofelis marmorata) and Asiatic golden cat (Pardofelis temminickii). The biodiversity found within the fragments suggests that these small patches of remnant forest may be of conservation value to certain mammal species and may facilitate connectivity across the landscape.

biodiversity, tropical forests, mammals↗
DOE OSTI2018

Land use strategies to mitigate climate change in carbon dense temperate forests

Strategies to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions through forestry activities have been proposed, but ecosystem process-based integration of climate change, enhanced CO 2 , disturbance from fire, and management actions at regional scales are extremely limited. In this work, we examine the relative merits of afforestation, reforestation, management changes, and harvest residue bioenergy use in the Pacific Northwest. This region represents some of the highest carbon density forests in the world, which can store carbon in trees for 800 y or more. Oregon’s net ecosystem carbon balance (NECB) was equivalent to 72% of total emissions in 2011–2015. By 2100, simulations show increased net carbon uptake with little change in wildfires. Reforestation, afforestation, lengthened harvest cycles on private lands, and restricting harvest on public lands increase NECB 56% by 2100, with the latter two actions contributing the most. Resultant cobenefits included water availability and biodiversity, primarily from increased forest area, age, and species diversity. Converting 127,000 ha of irrigated grass crops to native forests could decrease irrigation demand by 233 billion m 3 ∙y –1 . Utilizing harvest residues for bioenergy production instead of leaving them in forests to decompose increased emissions in the short-term (50 y), reducing mitigation effectiveness. Increasing forest carbon on public lands reduced emissions compared with storage in wood products because the residence time is more than twice that of wood products. Thus, temperate forests with high carbon densities and lower vulnerability to mortality have substantial potential for reducing forest sector emissions. Our analysis framework provides a template for assessments in other temperate regions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Climate and air pollution impacts of generating biopower from forest management residues in California

California faces crisis conditions on its forested landscapes. A century of aggressive logging and fire suppression in combination with conditions exacerbated by climate change have created an ongoing ecological, economic, and public health emergency. Between commercial harvests on California’s working forestlands and the increasing number of acres the state treats each year for fire risk reduction and carbon sequestration, California forests generate millions of tons of woody residues annually—residues that are typically left or burned in the field. State policymakers have turned to biomass electricity generation as a key market for woody biomass in the hope that it can support sustainable forest management activities while also providing low-carbon renewable electricity. However, open questions surrounding the climate and air pollution performance of electricity generation from woody biomass have made it difficult to determine how best to manage the risks and opportunities posed by forest residues. The California Biomass Residue Emissions Characterization (C-BREC) model offers a spatially-explicit life cycle assessment framework to rigorously and transparently establish the climate and air pollution impacts of biopower from forest residues in California under current conditions. The C-BREC model characterizes the variable emissions from different biomass supply chains as well as the counterfactual emissions from prescribed burn, wildfire, and decay avoided by residue mobilization. We find that the life cycle ‘carbon footprint’ of biopower from woody residues generated by recent forest treatments in California ranges widely—from comparable with solar photovoltaic on the low end to comparable with natural gas on the high end. This variation stems largely from the heterogeneity in the fire and decay conditions these residues would encounter if left in the field, with utilization of residue that would otherwise have been burned in place offering the best climate and air quality performance. California’s energy and forest management policies should account for this variation to ensure desired climate benefits are achieved.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Linking remotely sensed ecosystem resilience with forest mortality across the continental United States

Episodes of forest mortality have been observed worldwide associated with climate change, impacting species composition and ecosystem services such as water resources and carbon sequestration. Yet our ability to predict forest mortality remains limited, especially across large scales. Time series of satellite imagery has been used to document ecosystem resilience globally, but it is not clear how well remotely sensed resilience can inform the prediction of forest mortality across continental, multi-biome scales. Here, we leverage forest inventories across the continental United States to systematically assess the potential of ecosystem resilience derived using different data sets and methods to predict forest mortality. Here we found high resilience was associated with low mortality in eastern forests but was associated with high mortality in western regions. The unexpected resilience–mortality relation in western United States may be due to several factors including plant trait acclimation, insect population dynamics, or resource competition. Overall, our results not only supported the opportunity to use remotely sensed ecosystem resilience to predict forest mortality but also highlighted that ecological factors may have crucial influences because they can reverse the sign of the resilience–mortality relationships.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2018

Ecosystem heterogeneity and diversity mitigate Amazon forest resilience to frequent extreme droughts

The impact of increases in drought frequency on the Amazon forest's composition, structure and functioning remain uncertain. We used a process- and individual-based ecosystem model (ED2) to quantify the forest's vulnerability to increased drought recurrence. We generated meteorologically realistic, drier-than-observed rainfall scenarios for two Amazon forest sites, Paracou (wetter) and Tapajós (drier), to evaluate the impacts of more frequent droughts on forest biomass, structure and composition. The wet site was insensitive to the tested scenarios, whereas at the dry site biomass declined when average rainfall reduction exceeded 15%, due to high mortality of large-sized evergreen trees. Biomass losses persisted when year-long drought recurrence was shorter than 2–7 yr, depending upon soil texture and leaf phenology. From the site-level scenario results, we developed regionally applicable metrics to quantify the Amazon forest's climatological proximity to rainfall regimes likely to cause biomass loss >20% in 50 yr according to ED2 predictions. Nearly 25% (1.8 million km 2 ) of the Amazon forests could experience frequent droughts and biomass loss if mean annual rainfall or interannual variability changed by 2σ. At least 10% of the high-emission climate projections (CMIP5/RCP8.5 models) predict critically dry regimes over 25% of the Amazon forest area by 2100.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1994

(abstract) Monitoring the Freeze/Thaw Transitions in Taiga Forests Using ERS-1 SAR

Automated recording stations have been installed at the Bonanza Creek Experimental Forest, a Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site located near Fairbanks, Alaska, in a forest stand of the Tanana River floodplain underlain by discontinuous permafrost. These stations provide a continuous record of dielectric constant and temperature of tree trunks, and soil moisture and temperature profiles down to the root zone. Along with the weather stations deployed at the same location, these measurements provide a continuous record of the environmental and phenologic conditions of the forest during a complete seasonal cycle. At the same time, ERS-1 SAR imaged the study site repeatedly from space to provide radar backscatter measurements of the forest approximately three times a month. Here, we examine the temporal dynamic of ERS-1 SAR measurements in relation with the changing environmental and phenologic state of the forest canopy and of the forest ground layers during the winter/spring and fall/winter transitions of 1992 and 1993. During these transitions, we examine whether changes in radar backscatter observed by ERS-1 may be related to freezing or thawing of the soil and vegetation in order to determine the start and end of the growing season for the forest. The results of this analysis are used in turn to determine whether similar changes are observed over larger regions. Mosaics of SAR data generated along three different North-South Alaskan ERS-1 transects that intercept with our study site are used in combination with hourly air temperature and daily precipitation rates gathered at airport weather stations by the National Weather Service. Results obtained using ERS-1 data collected from January 1992 to mid-1993 will be discussed.

permafrost temporal dynamics Alaska ecology radar ↗
NASA NTRS2019

Thinner Bark Increases Sensitivity of Wetter Amazonian Tropical Forests to Fire

Understory fires represent an accelerating threat to Amazonian tropical forests and can, during drought, affect larger areas than deforestation itself. These fires kill trees at rates varying from < 10 to c. 90% depending on fire intensity, forest disturbance history and tree functional traits. Here, we examine variation in bark thickness across the Amazon. Bark can protect trees from fires, but it is often assumed to be consistently thin across tropical forests. Here, we show that investment in bark varies, with thicker bark in dry forests and thinner in wetter forests. We also show that thinner bark translated into higher fire-driven tree mortality in wetter forests, with between 0.67 and 5.86 gigatonnes CO2 lost in Amazon understory fires between 2001 and 2010. Trait-enabled global vegetation models that explicitly include variation in bark thickness are likely to improve the predictions of fire effects on carbon cycling in tropical forests.

Carbon cycle↗
NASA NTRS2019

Thinner Bark Increases Sensitivity of Wetter Amazonian Tropical Forests to Fire

Understory fires represent an accelerating threat to Amazonian tropical forests and can, during drought, affect larger areas than deforestation itself. These fires kill trees at rates varying from < 10 to c. 90% depending on fire intensity, forest disturbance history, and tree functional traits. Here, we examine variation in bark thickness across the Amazon. Bark can protect trees from fires, but it is often assumed to be consistently thin across tropical forests. Here, we show that investment in bark varies, with thicker bark in dry forests and thinner in wetter forests. We also show that thinner bark translated into higher fire-driven tree mortality in wetter forests, with between 0.67 to 5.86 gigatons CO2 lost in Amazon understory fires between 2001-2010. Trait-enabled global vegetation models that explicitly include variation in bark thickness are likely to improve the predictions of fire effects on carbon cycling in tropical forests.

Carbon cycle↗
NASA NTRS2019

Role of forest regrowth in global carbon sink dynamics

Although the existence of a large carbon sink in terrestrial ecosystems is well-established, the drivers of this sink remain uncertain. It has been suggested that perturbations to forest demography caused by past land-use change, management, and natural disturbances may be causing a large component of current carbon uptake. Here we use a global compilation of forest age observations, combined with a terrestrial biosphere model with explicit modeling of forest regrowth, to partition the global forest carbon sink between old-growth and regrowth stands over the period 1981–2010. For 2001–2010 we find a carbon sink of 0.85 (0.66–0.96) Pg/year located in intact old-growth forest, primarily in the moist tropics and boreal Siberia, and 1.30 (1.03–1.96) Pg/year located in stands regrowing after past disturbance. Approaching half of the sink in regrowth stands would have occurred from demographic changes alone, in the absence of other environmental changes. These age-constrained results show consistency with those simulated using an ensemble of demographically-enabled terrestrial biosphere models following an independent reconstruction of historical land use and management. We estimate that forests will accumulate an additional 69 (44–131) Pg C in live biomass from changes in demography alone if natural disturbances, wood harvest, and reforestation continue at rates comparable to those during 1981–2010. Our results confirm that it is not possible to understand the current global terrestrial carbon sink without accounting for the sizeable sink due to forest demography. They also imply that a large portion of the current terrestrial carbon sink is strictly transient in nature.

forest↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Assessing Alaskan boreal forest landcover affected by climate-wildfire interactions from ground truth surveys and NASA airborne remote sensing

Alaska’s boreal forest is facing unprecedented challenges under rapid climate warming (increasingly severe fires, droughts, pest/disease outbreaks) that may destabilize its function as a global carbon sink. Forests near Fairbanks may be especially vulnerable, impacting air quality and ecosystem services. We combined GT (ground truthing) with Airborne Visible InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS-NG) images collected by the NASA Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) program (2017-2019) to assess landcover change at five recently burned sites (2001-2019) of different fire severities and moisture regimes within 30 miles of Fairbanks. GT included tree seedling counts, understory % cover and >50% leaf canopy color assessment. 36 circular plots (1/30 ha radius) including 6 moderate to severely burned plots were selected across sites. 31 additional sites including 12 burned sites were geotagged in photos. AVIRIS images were processed from 29 spectral bands selected to identify changes in chlorophyll and water content. Images were segmented into natural boundaries (polygons) using ENVI 5.5 software. A spectral library of 8 AVIRIS bands with high between-class/low within-class variation was used in two random forest models to predict vegetation classes (model 1: 12 classes, model 2: 14 classes) in each AVIRIS scene, using 20% of the data as training data. Model 2 classified 20% more polygons overall, but only 42% of GT/geotagged polygons were correctly classified by both models. More forest sites were correctly classified (63%) than open vegetation (32%) or post-fire sites (46%). 50% of aspen forest and post-fire polygons were misclassified as shrubland. GT revealed that post-fire plots supported 134,000 (± 48,000) tree seedlings and saplings ha-1 (0.2 - 4 m height, 64% deciduous) versus 2500 (± 2100) shrubs ha-1 (1-6 m height). > 50% canopy browning was observed in conifer forest (8 plots) with no signs of insect infestation. Canopy herbivory > 50% (leaf miner, leaf beetle) and moose herbivory of tree bark was seen across aspen sites. Our study suggests: 1) low canopy vegetation presents challenges for improved landcover classification, and 2) aspen forest should be differentiated in vegetation maps which would aid in tracking herbivory.

Alaska↗
DOE OSTI2025

Tidal–hydrological dynamics of water temperature across freshwater forested wetlands on the northeastern Pacific coast

Abstract Tidal freshwater forests were once extensive across temperate coastlines, but loss and fragmentation have made estimation of their ecosystem functions challenging. We measured water temperature for 2 years in three Sitka spruce tidal forests, a restoration site, and an adjacent emergent marsh on the Columbia River, Washington, United States. We assessed spatial variability of water temperature within sites including the effects of hydrology, differences among bay and tributary tidal forests, and differences between the tidal forests and the mainstem Columbia, the restoration site, and the emergent marsh. The tidal forests nearest to the bay had lower interior water temperatures than their channel confluences by up to 2.5°C (weekly median temperature) and 2.0°C (weekly maximum temperature), with most cooling occurring during the low‐flow months of July–September. Tributary sites had maximum temperatures up to 1.9°C cooler than bay sites and 4.2°C cooler than the mainstem. Temperatures in the two bay sites decreased by −0.16°C/100 m and −0.07°C/100 m, on average. The restoration site had the smallest within‐site temperature gradient. Differences in maximum temperatures were greatest when tidal range was low, while higher tidal ranges were associated with warmer and more variable site interiors relative to their confluences. These results suggest that water temperatures in these tidal forests can provide temperature refugia for cold water biota including salmon.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Yeasts from temperate forests

Yeasts are ubiquitous in temperate forests. While this broad habitat is well-defined, the yeasts inhabiting it and their life cycles, niches, and contributions to ecosystem functioning are less understood. Yeasts are present on nearly all sampled substrates in temperate forests worldwide. They associate with soils, macroorganisms, and other habitats and no doubt contribute to broader ecosystem-wide processes. Researchers have gathered information leading to hypotheses about yeasts' niches and their life cycles based on physiological observations in the laboratory as well as genomic analyses, but the challenge remains to test these hypotheses in the forests themselves. Here, we summarize the habitat and global patterns of yeast diversity, give some information on a handful of well-studied temperate forest yeast genera, discuss the various strategies to isolate forest yeasts, and explain temperate forest yeasts' contributions to biotechnology. Here, we close with a summary of the many future directions and outstanding questions facing researchers in temperate forest yeast ecology. Yeasts present an exciting opportunity to better understand the hidden world of microbial ecology in this threatened and global habitat.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Estimating source-sink distributions and fluxes of reactive nitrogen and sulfur within a mixed forest canopy

The vertical source-sink distribution of air pollutants within and above forested canopies is necessary for describing the biological, physical, and chemical processes influencing the soil-vegetation-atmosphere exchange. Here, this study implemented inverse modeling methods to estimate the source-sink and flux profiles of reactive nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) compounds from measurements of the mean concentration profiles of ammonia (NH 3 ), nitric acid (HNO 3 ), sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ), and particulate ammonium (NH 4 + ), nitrate (NO 3 − ), and sulfate (SO 4 2− ) at a forest site in the southern Appalachian Mountains. Three inverse approaches utilizing different approximations to scalar transport within the canopy were developed and evaluated against sensible heat flux measurements. The Eulerian model (EUL), which incorporates vertical velocity skewness, performed well in reproducing the turbulent heat fluxes and was subsequently used to calculate the chemical source-sink and flux profiles. Above-canopy fluxes of NH 3 were downward, indicating that the forest was a net sink of NH 3 . The soil/litter layer was both a source and a sink for NH 3 but the exchange rate at the forest floor was small. Fluxes of HNO 3 , SO 2 , NO 3 − , NH 4 + , and SO 4 2- were uni-directional (deposition only) between the air and the canopy/ground and increased monotonically from the forest floor to the canopy top. Crown foliage dominated the uptake of reactive N and S during the growing season, accounting for 80–90% of the total canopy-scale flux. Fluxes and canopy-ground partitioning estimated using the resistance-based Surface Tiled Aerosol and Gas Exchange (STAGE) model were generally comparable to EUL. The comparison highlights the need for improved parameterizations of litter exchange and NH 3 compensation points in resistance models for forest ecosystems. The findings here benefit the application of critical loads in forest ecosystems and guide further development of resistance-based exchange models.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Using a coupled dispersion model to estimate depletion of a tritium oxide plume by a forest

Tritium processing facilities may release tritium oxide (HTO) to the atmosphere which poses potential health risks to exposed co-located workers and to offsite individuals. Most radiological consequence analyses determine HTO dose by applying Gaussian plume models to simulate the transport of HTO. Within these models, deposition velocity is used to assess the sum of all deposition processes acting on the plume. While this may account for vegetative and soil uptake or respiration processes, it may currently lack inclusion of the complex interactions within heterogeneous forested environments. In this complex morphology, dispersion patterns are significantly altered by changing flow regimes above and below the forest canopy and by the transfer of plume material across the canopy boundary. To determine the effects of a heterogeneous forest canopy on an airborne HTO plume, a Gaussian plume model coupled with an advection-diffusion plume model was applied to estimate transport in the free atmosphere above the forest and within the forest canopy and understory. During 2012, wind speed and wind direction measurements taken at 5 heights, ranging from 2-m to 28-m, on an instrumented meteorological tower located in a loblolly pine forest at the Department of Energy (DOE) Savannah River Site (SRS), near Aiken, SC. From these measurements, model predictions were made over a full spectrum of meteorological conditions. Deposition and resuspension velocities were calculated based on the model-predicted flux of plume material across the top of the forest canopy. Additionally, net deposition velocity of the plume material was calculated as the difference between the deposition and resuspension velocities. The 1st and 5th percentile net deposition velocities were estimated to be 0.7 cm s-1 and 1.2 cm s-1, respectively.

63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTAN↗
DOE OSTI2019

Evidence for Edge Enhancements of Soil Respiration in Temperate Forests

Abstract Forest fragmentation impacts carbon uptake and storage; however, the magnitude and direction of fragmentation impacts on soil respiration remain poorly characterized. We quantify soil respiration rates along edge‐to‐interior transects in two temperate broadleaf forests in the eastern United States that vary in climate, species composition, and soil type. We observe average soil respiration rates 15–26% higher at the forest edge compared to the interior, corresponding to large gradients in soil temperature. We find no significant difference in the sensitivity of soil respiration to temperature between the forest edge and interior. Fragmentation and resultant shifts in microenvironment alter forest productivity and soil respiration near forest edges. Ecosystem models do not currently represent edge dynamics, but given the prevalence of landscape fragmentation and its effect on carbon cycling along forest edges, this omission likely introduces an important source of uncertainty in our understanding of terrestrial carbon dynamics with a changing landscape and climate.

Smith, Ian A.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Forest Carbon Storage in the Western United States: Distribution, Drivers, and Trends

Abstract Forests are a large carbon sink and could serve as natural climate solutions that help moderate future warming. Thus, establishing forest carbon baselines is essential for tracking climate‐mitigation targets. Western US forests are natural climate solution hotspots but are profoundly threatened by drought and altered disturbance regimes. How these factors shape spatial patterns of carbon storage and carbon change over time is poorly resolved. Here, we estimate live and dead forest carbon density in 19 forested western US ecoregions with national inventory data (2005–2019) to determine: (a) current carbon distributions, (b) underpinning drivers, and (c) recent trends. Potential drivers of current carbon included harvest, wildfire, insect and disease, topography, and climate. Using random forests, we evaluated driver importance and relationships with current live and dead carbon within ecoregions. We assessed trends using linear models. Pacific Northwest (PNW) and Southwest (SW) ecoregions were most and least carbon dense, respectively. Climate was an important carbon driver in the SW and Lower Rockies. Fire reduced live and increased dead carbon, and was most important in the Upper Rockies and California. No ecoregion was unaffected by fire. Harvest and private ownership reduced carbon, particularly in the PNW. Since 2005, live carbon declined across much of the western US, likely from drought and fire. Carbon has increased in PNW ecoregions, likely recovering from past harvest, but recent record fire years may alter trajectories. Our results provide insight into western US forest carbon function and future vulnerabilities, which is vital for effective climate change mitigation strategies.

Environmental Sciences & Ecology↗
DOE OSTI2024

Fungal community composition predicts forest carbon storage at a continental scale

Forest soils harbor hyper-diverse microbial communities which fundamentally regulate carbon and nutrient cycling across the globe. Directly testing hypotheses on how microbiome diversity is linked to forest carbon storage has been difficult, due to a lack of paired data on microbiome diversity and in situ observations of forest carbon accumulation and storage. Here, we investigated the relationship between soil microbiomes and forest carbon across 238 forest inventory plots spanning 15 European countries. We show that the composition and diversity of fungal, but not bacterial, species is tightly coupled to both forest biotic conditions and a seven-fold variation in tree growth rates and biomass carbon stocks when controlling for the effects of dominant tree type, climate, and other environmental factors. This linkage is particularly strong for symbiotic endophytic and ectomycorrhizal fungi known to directly facilitate tree growth. Since tree growth rates in this system are closely and positively correlated with belowground soil carbon stocks, we conclude that fungal composition is a strong predictor of overall forest carbon storage across the European continent.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

Alternative stable states of the forest mycobiome are maintained through positive feedbacks

Most trees on Earth form a symbiosis with either arbuscular mycorrhizal or ectomycorrhizal fungi. By forming common mycorrhizal networks, actively modifying the soil environment and other ecological mechanisms, these contrasting symbioses may generate positive feedbacks that favour their own mycorrhizal strategy (that is, the con-mycorrhizal strategy) at the expense of the alternative strategy. Positive con-mycorrhizal feedbacks set the stage for alternative stable states of forests and their fungi, where the presence of different forest mycorrhizal strategies is determined not only by external environmental conditions but also mycorrhiza-mediated feedbacks embedded within the forest ecosystem. Here, in this work, we test this hypothesis using thousands of US forest inventory sites to show that arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal tree recruitment and survival exhibit positive con-mycorrhizal density dependence. Data-driven simulations show that these positive feedbacks are sufficient in magnitude to generate and maintain alternative stable states of the forest mycobiome. Given the links between forest mycorrhizal strategy and carbon sequestration potential, the presence of mycorrhizal-mediated alternative stable states affects how we forecast forest composition, carbon sequestration and terrestrial climate feedbacks.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗