Alison Haugh of Farragut High School, Farragut, TN was a semifinalist in the Intel Science Talent search for 2013. Her work on "Decreasing the cost of high dimensional simulations of the community land model through machine learning and emulation" uses ideas from uncertainty quantification to provide tools to climate scientists to test and understand effects of model parameters with greater speed and accuracy. Alison performed her senior math thesis project at the Climate Change Science Institute in spring 2012 and continued her project over the summer and into the fall. This dedication produced results that impressed the Intel Science Talent search committee. Her mentors at CCSI were Rick Archibald, Chad Steed, and Dan Ricciuto. Pictured: Chad Steed with Alison Haugh in front of EVEREST.
A new carbon cycling model developed at ORNL’s Climate Change Science Institute better accounts for the carbon dioxide-releasing activity of microbes in the ground, improving understanding of the role soil will play in future climate change. In a paper published in Ecological Applications (doi: 10.1890/12-0681.1.), the journal of the Ecological Society of America, authors Gangsheng Wang, Wilfred Post, and Melanie Mayes, integrated data from scientific literature on carbon degradation in soil to form the Microbial-Enzyme-mediated Decomposition, or MEND, model that improves upon previous models.
Predicting climate change depends heavily on the cycling of carbon dioxide, which is found in four main reservoirs: the atmosphere, biosphere, oceans and soil. ORNL's model was designed to replace traditional soil carbon cycling models.
"Soil is a big reservoir of carbon," said co-author Melanie Mayes of CCSI and ORNL’s Environmental Sciences Division. "Most of the soil carbon cycling models in use today are so vastly simplified that they ignore the fact that decomposition is actually performed by microbes."
"Our MEND model does a better job of representing the mechanisms of soil carbon decomposition than existing models," Mayes said.
Sujithkumar Surendran Nair, Shujiang Kang, Wilfred ‘Mac’ Post, Stan Wullschleger and colleagues published a review article on bioenergy crop models in the GCB Bioenergy journal. This paper has been recognized as one of the top 15 most downloaded articles for 2012 in the journal GCB Bioenergy. The article reviewed crop models that have been developed or adapted for simulating bioenergy crops. The bioenergy crops considered were herbaceous energy crops (switchgrass, miscanthus, and sugarcane [Saccharum officinarum] or energy cane [Saccharum spp.]), perennial woody crops (hybrid poplar Populus spp.] and willow [Salix spp.]), and crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) crops adapted to arid lands (Agave and Opuntia). The review provides a description of each model; discusses approaches used to simulate crop growth, phenology, and water, carbon, and nitrogen dynamics; and considers how abiotic stresses are represented.
Investigators from the SPRUCE project descended on Grand Rapids, Minnesota, this past August to collect hundreds of peat samples for analysis. The SPRUCE project, or Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Climatic and Environmental Change, is an experiment to assess the response of northern peatland ecosystems to warming and elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Ultimately, large-scale open-top experimental chambers to control temperature 
and CO2 will be built on-site. This sampling trip, led by Paul Hanson, Colleen Iversen, and their many colleagues from ORNL, along with collaborators from the USDA Forest Service, Chapman University, Georgia Tech, Florida State University, Iowa State University, the University of Oregon, and the University of Minnesota, spent a week in Minnesota collecting 3-m deep peat cores from the SPRUCE experimental plots. Meanwhile, construction of the experimental chambers is in the design phase, with anticipated completion in 2013. This timetable is contingent upon the cooperation of the weather in northern Minnesota as well as funding availability.
Ben P
reston, Deputy Director of CCSI, was selected by the Greater Knoxville Business Journal as one of Knoxville’s “40 under 40” award winners. The 40 winners were selected "for their passion, commitment, visibility, diversity and overall impact in shaping our region and making it a better place." Ben strives to be a reliable source for educating the public about climate change. His research aims to understand the effects of climate change on humans so that he can devise strategies that will minimize any negative effects. For the complete story, click here.
