Changing patterns of precipitation are causing moisture stress in ways that alters crop growth and nutrition. Moisture stress not only directly impacts plant physiology but also indirectly affects plant growth by altering soil conditions. While the direct effects of moisture stress on growth and physiology are well studied, outcomes are often examined only as a consequence of current water stress within a single growing season, without consideration of accumulated moisture-induced changes in soil properties that accrue over many seasons (legacy effects). Moreover, our understanding of the impacts of current and legacy effects on both crop growth and nutrition are lacking. To explore these connections, the infrastructure of the Boston Area Climate Experiment (BACE) was leveraged to examine the responses of kale (Brassica oleracea), oat (Avena sativa) and bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) to three levels of precipitation (ambient, 75 % of ambient, and 50 % of ambient) when grown in legacy soils obtained from 10 years of differential precipitation inputs (high, medium, or low water). Plant growth was measured weekly, and nutritional differences within the edible portions of each crop were assessed at the end of the season. We found that differences in current precipitation affects both growth and nutrients, while legacy effects more strongly affect bionutrient levels than plant growth.

We employed an idealizedmacro-energy systemmodel to examine how the value of unidirectionally- and bidirectionally-charging electric vehicles (EVs) varies with EV penetration and mix of electricity generators. We find that EVs can help wind and solar-based electricity generation systems to be less costly by making better use of power that would otherwise be curtailed and, potentially, by giving electricity back to the grid at times of peak net load. At low levels of EV penetration, bidirectional EVs are valuable because they can provide electricity at times of main load peak. At today's low levels of EV penetration, bidirectional EVs stimulate investments in solar and wind generation and substantially reduce the need for grid-battery storage compared to unidirectional EVs. At high levels of EV penetration, generation capacity must be increased, and most peaks in main net load demand can be met by reductions in charging by unidirectional EVs.

Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering (SAG) is one of the solar geoengineering approaches that have been proposed to offset some of the impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Past studies have shown that SAG may have adverse impacts on the global hydrological cycle. Using a climate model, we quantify the sensitivity of the tropical monsoon precipitation to the meridional distribution of volcanic sulfate aerosols prescribed in the stratosphere in terms of the changes in aerosol optical depth (AOD). In our experiments, large changes in summer monsoon precipitation in the tropical monsoon regions are simulated, especially over the Indian region, in association with meridional shifts in the location of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) caused by changes in interhemispheric AOD differences. Based on our simulations, we estimate a sensitivity of - 1.8 degrees +/- 0.0 degrees meridional shift in global mean ITCZ and a 6.9 +/- 0.4% reduction in northern hemisphere (NH) monsoon index (NHMI; summer monsoon precipitation over NH monsoon regions) per 0.1 interhemispheric AOD difference (NH minus southern hemisphere). We also quantify this sensitivity in terms of interhemispheric differences in effective radiative forcing and interhemispheric temperature differences: 3.5 +/- 0.3% change in NHMI per unit (Wm(-2)) interhemispheric radiative forcing difference and 5.9 +/- 0.4% change per unit (degrees C) interhemispheric temperature difference. Similar sensitivity estimates are also made for the Indian monsoon precipitation. The establishment of the relationship between interhemispheric AOD (or radiative forcing) differences and ITCZ shift as discussed in this paper will further facilitate and simplify our understanding of the effects of SAG on tropical monsoon rainfall.

The availability of global high-resolution land cover maps provides promising a priori knowledge for characterizing subpixel heterogeneity and improving predictions of directional reflectance of coarse-resolution pixels. Due to mutual shadowing and sheltering effects between the adjacent forest and cropland patches, the spectral nonlinear mixing of patchy ecotones is significant, especially when the sun illuminates the ecotone from the forest side with high solar zenith angle. The spectral linear mixture (SLM) approach leads to overestimation of the bidirectional reflectance factor (BRF) in the red band in the principal plane (PP), with a maximum absolute error (MAE) of 0.0063 and a maximum relative error (MRE) of 52.5%, and to underestimation in the near-infrared band in PP with an MAE of 0.0940 and an MRE of 14.5%. In a scenario with randomly distributed boundary orientations, the overestimation of SLM increases with the degree of fragmentation and the view zenith angle. We propose a Radiative Transfer model for patchy ECotones (RTEC). which improves R-2 from 0.61 to 0.94 in the red band of Landsat-8 directional reflectance at the validation site. The RTEC model provides an efficient and analytical approach for directional reflectance predictions over heterogeneous patchy landscapes at coarse resolution and will be used for biophysical parameter retrievals [e.g., the leaf area index (LAI)] in future applications.

Leaf optical spectra reflect the combination of leaf biochemical, morphological and physiological properties, and play an important role in many ecological and Earth system processes. Radiative transfer models are widely used to simulate leaf spectra by quantifying photon transfer processes of reflection, transmission and absorption within a plant leaf. Recent advances in spectral invariants theory offer a unique and efficient approach for modeling the canopy-scale radiative transfer processes, but remain underexplored for applications at the leaf scale. In this study, we developed a leaf-scale optical property model based on the spectrally invariant properties (leaf-SIP) of plant leaves. Similar to the canopy-scale model, the leaf-SIP model decouples leaf-scale radiative transfer process into two parts: wavelength-dependent contribution from leaf chemical components and wavelength-independent contribution from leaf structures, described by two spectrally invariant parameters (i.e., a photon recollision probability p and a scattering asymmetry parameter q). We implemented the leaf-SIP model by parameterizing p and q with a measurable leaf morphological trait, the leaf mass per area (LMA). We evaluated the performance of the leaf-SIP model with two in situ datasets (i.e., LOPEX and ANGERS) and the widely used PROSPECT leaf optical model. The results show that the leaf spectra simulated by the leaf-SIP model agreed well with in situ datasets and the simulations of the PROSPECT model, with a small root mean squared error (RMSE), bias, and high coefficients of determination (R-2) of 0.026, 0.035, 0.95 and 0.037, 0.049, 0.91 for leaf reflectance and leaf transmittance, respectively. Our results also show that the leaf-SIP model can be used with measured leaf spectra to accurately estimate several key leaf functional traits, such as the leaf chlorophyll content, equivalent water thickness, and LMA. The leaf-SIP model provides an efficient and physical way of accurately simulating leaf spectra and retrieving key leaf functional traits from hyperspectral measurements.

Experiments accessing extreme conditions at x-ray free electron lasers (XFELs) involve rapidly evolving conditions of temperature. Here, we report time-resolved, direct measurements of temperature using spectral streaked optical pyrometry of x-ray and optical laser-heated states at the High Energy Density instrument of the European XFEL. This collection of typical experiments, coupled with numerical models, outlines the reliability, precision, and meaning of time dependent temperature measurements using optical emission at XFEL sources. Dynamic temperatures above 1500 K are measured continuously from spectrally- and temporally-resolved thermal emission at 450-850 nm, with time resolution down to 10-100 ns for 1-200 mu s streak camera windows, using single shot and integrated modes. Targets include zero-pressure foils free-standing in air and in vacuo, and high-pressure samples compressed in diamond anvil cell multi-layer targets. Radiation sources used are 20-fs hard x-ray laser pulses at 17.8 keV, in single pulses or 2.26MHz pulse trains of up to 30 pulses, and 250-ns infrared laser single pulses. A range of further possibilities for optical measurements of visible light in x-ray laser experiments using streak optical spectroscopy are also explored, including for the study of x-ray induced optical fluorescence, which often appears as background in thermal radiation measurements. We establish several scenarios where combined emissions from multiple sources are observed and discuss their interpretation. Challenges posed by using x-ray lasers as non-invasive probes of the sample state are addressed. (c) 2023 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0142196

The chemical interaction of Sn with H2 by X-ray diffraction methods at pressures of 180-210GPa is studied. A previously unknown tetrahydride SnH4 with a cubic structure (fcc) exhibiting superconducting properties below TC = 72 K is obtained; the formation of a high molecular C2/m-SnH14 superhydride and several lower hydrides, fcc SnH2 , and C2-Sn12 H18 , is also detected. The temperature dependence of critical current density JC (T) in SnH4 yields the superconducting gap 2Delta(0)= 21.6 meV at 180GPa. SnH4 has unusual behavior in strong magnetic fields: B,T-linear dependences of magnetoresistance and the upper critical magnetic field BC2 (T) (TC - T). The latter contradicts the Wertheimer-Helfand-Hohenberg model developed for conventional superconductors. Along with this, the temperature dependence of electrical resistance of fcc SnH4 in non-superconducting state exhibits a deviation from what is expected for phonon-mediated scattering described by the Bloch-Gruneisen model and is beyond the framework of the Fermi liquid theory. Such anomalies occur for many superhydrides, making them much closer to cuprates than previously believed.