Contacts:
Julie Chao, JHChao@lbl.gov, c-415-318-9940
Dan Krotz, DAKrotz@lbl.gov, c-510-220-8529
Berkeley Lab Researchers at AGU
Climate Change Detection and Prediction, Subsurface Energy,
Extreme Climate Events, and Arctic Ecosystems 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 Area will be hosting Meet A Scientist sessions throughout the week at
booth #1005.
Monday, Dec. 14
10:50-11:05 AM
MOSCONE WEST 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
1:55-2:10
MOSCONE 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 PM
MOSCONE WEST 2003
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 traitbased modeling approaches and discuss future research opportunities.
Speaker: Lara Kueppers
5:45 PM - 06:00 PM
MOSCONE WEST 3004
Measuring the Impact of Rising CO2 and CH4 on 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 CO2 and CH4 and 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 CH 4 can be
used to quantify the impact of fossil fuel extraction on surface energy budget.
Speaker: Daniel Feldman
6:15-7:15
MOSCONE 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 CO2 and 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 AM
MOSCONE WEST 3003
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 PM
MOSCONE WEST 2004
Town Hall: The AmeriFlux Network: Celebrating Its 20th Anniversary
Next year marks the AmeriFlux 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
Deb Agarwal
Sebastien Biraud
Gilberto Pastorello
1:55-2:10
MOSCONE WEST 2004
Multi-scale Evidence of Large CO2 and CH4 Emissions from Permafrost During Spring
Thaw in Northern Alaska
Arctic warming will amplify climate change especially if thawing tundra emits increasingly greater
amounts of CO2 and CH4 due 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 CO2 and CH4 that had been trapped under the surface ice.
Speaker: Naama Raz Yaseef
Friday, Dec. 18
10:20 - 10:35
MOSCONE WEST 3008
Data Informatics for the Detection and Attribution of Extreme Climate Events
The potential for increasing frequency and intensity of extreme phenomena including downpours, heat
waves, and tropical cyclones constitutes one of the primary risks of climate change for society and the
environment. The challenge of characterizing these risks is that extremes represent the "tails" of
distributions of atmospheric phenomena and are, by definition, highly localized and typically relatively
transient. Therefore very large volumes of observational data and projections of future climate are
required to quantify their properties 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 tracking atmospheric 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.