• Energy Research
• 2016-2025close
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The timing of diel stem growth of mature forest trees is still largely unknown, as empirical data with high temporal resolution have not been available so far. Consequently, the effects of day-night conditions on tree growth remained uncertain. Here we present the first comprehensive field study of hourly-resolved radial stem growth of seven temperate tree species, based on 57 million underlying data points over a period of up to 8 years. We show that trees grow mainly at night, with a peak after midnight, when the vapour pressure deficit (VPD) is among the lowest. A high VPD strictly limits radial stem growth and allows little growth during daylight hours, except in the early morning. Surprisingly, trees also grow in moderately dry soil when the VPD is low. Species-specific differences in diel growth dynamics show that species able to grow earlier during the night are associated with the highest number of hours with growth per year and the largest annual growth increment. We conclude that species with the ability to overcome daily water deficits faster have greater growth potential. Furthermore, we conclude that growth is more sensitive than carbon uptake to dry air, as growth stops before stomata are known to close.

Monitoring of plant succession in glacier forelands so far has been restricted to field sampling. In this study, in situ vegetation sampling along a chronosequence between Little Ice Age (LIA) maximum extent and the recent glacier terminus at Jamtalferner/Silvretta (ferner is a Tyrolian toponym for glacier) is compared to time series of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) calculated from 13 Landsat scenes (1985-2016). The glacier terminus positions at 16 dates between the LIA maximum and 2015 were analysed from historical maps, orthophotos and LiDAR images and used for site age determination. We sampled plots of different time since deglaciation, from very recent to approx. 150 years: after 100 years, roughly 80% of the ground is covered by plants and ground cover did not increase essentially thereafter. Species number increases from 10-20 species on young sites to 40-50 species after 100 years. The NDVI increases for all plots between 1985 and 2016, from a mean of 0.11 for 1985-1991 to 0.2 in 2009 and 0.27 in 2016. For the plots deglaciated between 1 and about 150 years, the NDVI increases with the time of exposure. As the increase in ground cover is clearly reproduced by the NDVI (R² ground cover/NDVI 0.84) - even for sparsely vegetated areas -, we see a high potential of satellite-borne NDVI to perform regional characterizations of glacier forelands for hydrological, ecological and hazard management related applications. This data collection comprises the galcier outlines, NDVIs and chronosequencing locations with diversity and ground cover data.

The data shared in this package delivers the wildfire ignition probability and spreading capacity of vegetated surfaces in Romania following the method developed by Hysa and Baskaya (2019, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40808-018-0519-9). The model relies on remotely sensed free data that covers the time-lapse between 2015-2020. Geospatial information about sixteen criteria about anthropogenic, hydro-meteorological, geophysical, and fuel properties of Romanian territory are considered here. Raw data regarding each criterion is acquired for free from different online databases. The attribute table of the shared shapefile includes all inventory measurements per each criterion. It consist of 70410 point geometries in total representing 1km2 each, covering all vegetated surfaces of Romania. This data consist of a geospatial points layer (shp file), which deliver both the multi-criteria inventory records and the calculated wildfire ignition probability and wildfire spreading capacity (WIPI/WSCI) of the Romanian vegetated surfaces. The distance between points is 1km. The file consists of 70410 points in total, that overlap with the vegetated surfaces as derived from CORINE Land Cover data of 2018.

We studied if functional traits related to resource preemption (light and inorganic nutrients) exert control on space preemption of tropical seagrass meadows. Additionally, we studied if space preemption changed under different eutrophication scenarios. We took seagrass abundance data to study space preemption, seagrass traits data to study their effect on space preemption and eutrophication indicators to evaluate the level of eutrophication at each site/sampling event. The data was collected in Unguja Island (Zanzibar Archipealgo, Tanzania) in seven sites/sampling events (Harbor, Chapwani, Changuu, Bweleo, Fumba, Mangroves and Marumbi). Each site/sampling event comprised a subtidal seagrass meadow (2-4 meters depth) of around 2500 square meters, delimited by the coastline and a fringing reef. The data was taken between the 26.09.2016 to the 05.10.2016. In each site/sampling event, five 50 meters transects were deployed perpendicular to the coast and paralel to each other, approximately separated by 50 meters. The areas enclosed beweeen the transects were names A, B, C and D. Macroalgae biomass was collected as an indicator of eutrophication. Macroalgae biomass was quantified along five 50-m transects per site/sampling event, set perpendicular to the coast and parallel to each other, separated by ~50 meters. We collected the macroalgae present in three random 0.25x0.25 meters quadrats per transect. The macroalgae samples were cleaned of sediments and rinsed with water. They were then dried at 50°C in a forced air oven until constant dry weight. The macroalgae biomass was calculated as the grams of dry weight divided by the area of the quadrat (grams of dry weight per square meter).

Surface solar radiation drives the water cycle and energy exchange on the earth's surface, and its diffuse component can promote carbon uptake in ecosystems by increasing the plant productivity. The accurate knowledge of their spatial distribution is of great importance to many studies and applications, such as the estimation of agricultural yield, carbon dynamics of terrestrial systems, site selection of solar power plants, as well as trends of regional climate changes. Therefore, we produce the hourly surface radiation datasets based on the hourly Multi-functional Transport Satellite (MTSAT) satellite imagery and the ground observations from the China Meteorology Administration (CMA) through deep learning techniques. The deep network is trained using training samples in 2008, and then utilized to generate the hourly radiation for other years. This dataset provides the gridded surface global and diffuse solar radiation in 2015 within 71.025°E - 141.025°E and 14.975°N - 59.975°N with an increment of 0.05°. Both the direct predicted hourly values and the integrated daily and monthly total values are available. The dataset should be useful for the analysis of the regional differences and temporal cycles of solar radiation in fine scales, and the impact of diffuse radiation on plant growth etc.

As part of global efforts to reduce dependence on carbon-based energy sources there has been a rapid increase in the installation of renewable energy devices. The installation and operation of these devices can result in conflicts with wildlife. In the marine environment, mammals may avoid wind farms that are under construction or operating. Such avoidance may lead to more time spent travelling or displacement from key habitats. A paucity of data on at-sea movements of marine mammals around wind farms limits our understanding of the nature of their potential impacts. Here, we present the results of a telemetry study on harbour seals Phoca vitulina in The Wash, south-east England, an area where wind farms are being constructed using impact pile driving. We investigated whether seals avoid wind farms during operation, construction in its entirety, or during piling activity. The study was carried out using historical telemetry data collected prior to any wind farm development and telemetry data collected in 2012 during the construction of one wind farm and the operation of another. Within an operational wind farm, there was a close-to-significant increase in seal usage compared to prior to wind farm development. However, the wind farm was at the edge of a large area of increased usage, so the presence of the wind farm was unlikely to be the cause. There was no significant displacement during construction as a whole. However, during piling, seal usage (abundance) was significantly reduced up to 25 km from the piling activity; within 25 km of the centre of the wind farm, there was a 19 to 83% (95% confidence intervals) decrease in usage compared to during breaks in piling, equating to a mean estimated displacement of 440 individuals. This amounts to significant displacement starting from predicted received levels of between 166 and 178 dB re 1 μPa(p-p). Displacement was limited to piling activity; within 2 h of cessation of pile driving, seals were distributed as per the non-piling scenario. Synthesis and applications. Our spatial and temporal quantification of avoidance of wind farms by harbour seals is critical to reduce uncertainty and increase robustness in environmental impact assessments of future developments. Specifically, the results will allow policymakers to produce industry guidance on the likelihood of displacement of seals in response to pile driving; the relationship between sound levels and avoidance rates; and the duration of any avoidance, thus allowing far more accurate environmental assessments to be carried out during the consenting process. Further, our results can be used to inform mitigation strategies in terms of both the sound levels likely to cause displacement and what temporal patterns of piling would minimize the magnitude of the energetic impacts of displacement. Wash_diagWash_diag.xlsx is the historic location data (pre windfarm construction) for the 19 individuals used in the analysis described in Russell et al.

Study data and figure results.

PAPILA dataset is a collection of annual emission inventories of reactive gases (CO, NOx, NMVOCs, NH3 and SO2) from anthropogenic sources in South America, for the period 2014–2016. The dataset was developed on the basis of the existing data on the global dataset CAMS-GLOB-ANT v4.1 (developed by joining CEDS trends and EDGARv4.3.2 historical data), enriching it with derived data from locally available emission inventories for Argentina, Chile and Colombia. The inventories are presented as NetCDF4 files, one for each species and year, gridded with a spatial resolution of 0.1° x 0.1° covering the domain 32° W–120° W and 34° N–58° S. Each file contains 12 variables corresponding to the emissions in Tg/y from the following categories, which are organized and denominated using the nomenclature given by CAMS: thermal power plants (ENE); residential and commercial combustion (RES); road transportation (TRO); non-road transportation (TNR); fugitive emissions (FEF); industries (including fuel consumption in manufacturing industries and construction, refineries, industrial processes and solvent and other products use) (IND); agricultural soils (AGS); agriculture livestock (AGL); inland navigation (SHP); international navigation (SHP-INT); waste (including solid waste, wastewater and incineration) (SWD); and the sum of all sectors (SUM).

Data from: 30 Years Brings Changes to the Arthropod Community of Kibale National Park, Uganda by Opito, E.A., T. Alanko, U. Kalbitzer, M. Nummelin, P. Omeja, A. Valtonen, and Colin A. Chapman. 2023, Biotropica, Article DOI: 10.1111/btp.13206

This data corresponds to the manuscript titled: Sustainable sugarcane vinasse biorefinement toward biobased chemicals and bioenergy generation