Thursday, February 6, 2025

Biosphere, Atmosphere, Climate Interactions 2025 Class


The second part of this course explores the Soil-Plant-Atmosphere Continuum (SPAC). Below you will find materials covering soil properties, their mathematical representations, and an introduction to plant functioning. Students are expected to review these materials as an assignment before our class discussion of the concepts. In the latter portion of the course, we will conduct numerical experiments together using the GEOSPACE system.


Radiation

Water in soils 
 (Storyboard2020)
Once precipitations arrive to the ground surface they either infiltrate or generate runoff. We first state how they infiltrate and, actually how water behave in the soil and in the ground. We talk about the complexity of the Earth surface that contains life and call it, the Critical Zone. To study infiltration we introduce the Darcy and Richards equations of which we explain the characteristics.
  • A deeper view on matric potential 

Evaporation generalities (Storyboard2020)

A consistent part of root zone and surface water evaporates and returns to the atmosphere to eventually form clouds and precipitation again. The process follows quite complicate routes and is different when happening from liquid surfaces, soil or vegetation (and BTW animals).  In this group of lectures we try to figure out the physical mechanisms that act in the process and give some hint on methods to estimate evaporation and transpiration with physically based models. 
  • Supplemental Material
A little on the carbon cycle

The carbon cycle is intrinsically and fundamentally intertwined with both hydrological and climate cycles, forming an interconnected web of Earth system processes that operate across multiple temporal and spatial scales. While carbon dynamics were historically studied as a separate discipline from hydrology and meteorology, this artificial separation has dissolved as hydrology and meteorology have evolved into a comprehensive Earth System Science that recognizes the profound interconnectedness of all planetary processes. The integration of carbon cycle studies with hydrology represents a paradigm shift in our understanding of how Earth's systems function. Water serves as the primary medium through which carbon moves between the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere, while carbon dynamics simultaneously influence water availability, quality, and distribution patterns. This bidirectional relationship creates a complex network of feedbacks that are not merely numerous, but virtually countless in their manifestations and interactions.


Further Reading

D’Amato, Concetta, and Riccardo Rigon. 2025. “Elementary Mathematics Can Help to Shed Light on the Transpiration Budget under Water Stress,” January. https://doi.org/10.1002/ECO70009.


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