Vegetation and soils strongly influence ground temperature in permafrost ecosystems across the Arctic and sub-Arctic. These effects will cause differences rates of permafrost thaw related to the distribution of tundra and boreal forests. As the distribution of forests and tundra change, the effects of climate change on permafrost will also change. We review the ecosystem processes that will influence permafrost thaw and outline how they will feed back to climate warming.

It is projected that the summer–winter difference in pCO₂ levels will be larger in the future. In this paper, we study the causes of this seasonal amplification of pCO₂. We found that anthropogenic CO₂ enhances the effect of seasonal changes in temperature (T) and dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) on pCO₂ seasonality. This is because the oceanic pCO₂ becomes more sensitive to seasonal T and DIC changes when the CO₂ concentration is higher.

A 6-year time series of physical parameters and particle fluxes collected by a mooring in Kongsfjorden (Svalbard) suggests that the subglacial and watershed run-off driven by air temperature are the main processes affecting the lithogenic supply. As the Arctic temperature rises, glacier material will increase accordingly. The winter inflow of warm Atlantic waters is progressively increasing, hampering the nutrient supply from the bottom waters and severely reducing the biological production.

Mangroves are capable of storing carbon in their roots, leaves, and in the sediment; however they can also emit carbon as greenhouse gases (GHG) to the atmosphere. In this study, we collected sediment cores and calculated GHG flux rates from mangrove forests along the Red Sea coastline. Using flux rates reported in this study, we determined that Red Sea mangroves are net carbon sinks, storing more carbon than they emit. This study provides rationale to conserve and expand Red Sea mangroves.

It is of great interest to know whether croplands act as a net source or sink of atmospheric CO₂ and if soil carbon (C) stocks are preserved over long timescales due to the role of C in soil fertility. For a cropland in Switzerland it was found that managing the field under the Swiss framework of the Proof of Ecological Performance (PEP) resulted in soil C losses of 18.0 %. Additional efforts are needed to bring Swiss management practices closer to the goal of preserving soil C in the long term.

We have developed an accurate method (SynFlux) to estimate ozone deposition and stomatal uptake across 103 flux tower sites (43 US, 60 Europe), where ozone concentrations and fluxes have not been measured. In all, the SynFlux public dataset provides monthly values of ozone dry deposition for 926 site years across a wide array of ecosystems. The SynFlux dataset will promote further applications to ecosystem, air quality, or climate modeling across the geoscience community.

Raised ozone levels impact plant stomatal opening and thus photosynthesis. Most models describe this as a suppression of stomata opening. Field evidence suggests more complexity, as ozone damage may make stomatal response sluggish. In some circumstances, this causes stomata to be more open – a concern during drought conditions – by increasing transpiration. To guide interpretation and modelling of field measurements, we present an equation for sluggish effects, via a single tau parameter.

We investigate potential CO₂ and CH₄ production in degrading ice-rich permafrost in northeastern Siberia, deposited under different climatic conditions. With laboratory incubations, it could be shown that Late Pleistocene yedoma deposits generally produced more CO₂ than Holocene deposits. Thus, OM decomposability needs to be interpreted against the paleoenvironmental background. However, OM decomposability cannot be generalized solely based on the stratigraphic position.

We measured two natural radio-isotopes, ²¹⁰Po and ²¹⁰Pb, in the dissolved and particulate phase along the GEOVIDE cruise track to try to understand the cycling of these isotopes across a diverse combination of currents, basins, and conditions in the North Atlantic Ocean. Other groups collected data on many other trace elements and isotopes in order to map them as part of the GEOTRACES program. We found that Po and Pb activity was concentrated on small particles and varied within/between basins.

We compared the ability of in situ spectral and satellite sensors to estimate the productivity of Mediterranean grasslands undergoing different fertilization treatments. The objective of the study was to identify the best set of spectral predictors. In situ CO gas exchange and vegetation reflectance measurements were used for this purpose. Our results show the potential of Sentinel 2 and Landsat 8 satellites to monitor grasslands in support of a sustainable agriculture management.

Using a simulation study and field data, we quantify the biases that can be introduced in fluxes measured by eddy covariance (EC) if the raw high-frequency data are affected by random and systematic timing misalignments. Our study was motivated by the increasingly widespread adoption of fully digital EC systems potentially subject to such timing errors. We found biases as large as 10 %. We further propose a test to evaluate EC data logging systems for their time synchronization capabilities.

How environmental change affects a species' phenotype is crucial for taxonomy and biodiversity assessments and for their application as paleoecological indicators. Morphometric data of a Neotropical ostracod species, as well as several climatic and hydrochemical variables, were used to investigate the link between morphology and environmental conditions. Temperature seasonality, annual precipitation, and chloride and sulphate concentrations were identified as drivers for ostracod ecophenotypy.