We apply the development and systems operations software development model to create the eddy4R–Docker open-source, flexible, and modular eddy-covariance data processing environment. Test applications to aircraft and tower data, as well as a software cross validation demonstrate its efficiency and consistency. Key improvements in accessibility, extensibility, and reproducibility build the foundation for deploying complex scientific algorithms in an effective and scalable manner.

The development of coupled ocean atmosphere climate models is a complex process that inevitably includes multiple calibration steps (sometimes called tuning). Tuning uses degrees of freedom allowed by uncertainties in model approximations to modify parameters to make the simulation better align with some selected observed target(s). We describe how these tuning targets, parameters, and philosophy vary across six US modeling centers in order to increase the transparency of the practice.

A global aerosol reanalysis product named the Japanese Reanalysis for Aerosol (JRAero) was constructed by the Meteorological Research Institute (MRI) of the Japan Meteorological Agency. The reanalysis employs a global aerosol transport model developed by MRI and a two-dimensional variational data assimilation method. It assimilates maps of aerosol optical depth (AOD) from MODIS onboard the Terra and Aqua satellites every 6 h and has a TL159 horizontal resolution (approximately 1.1° × 1.1°).

The EURODELTA-Trends numerical experiment has been designed to assess the capability of chemistry-transport models to capture the evolution of surface air quality over the 1990–2010 period in Europe. It also includes sensitivity experiments in order to analyse the relative contribution of (i) emission changes, (ii) meteorological variability, and (iii) boundary conditions to air quality trends. The article is a detailed presentation of the experiment design and participating models.

We proposed the SUPECA kinetics to scale from single biogeochemical reactions to a network of mixed substrates and consumers. The framework for the first time represents single-substrate reactions, two-substrate reactions, and mineral surface sorption reactions in a scaling consistent manner. This new theory is theoretically solid and outperforms existing theories, particularly for substrate-limiting systems. The test with aerobic soil respiration showed its strengths for pragmatic application.

The OASIS software package provides capabilities that allow different models to be coupled together to carry out new scientific investigation. This is particularly useful in climate model simulations where atmosphere, ocean, sea ice, hydrology, land, ocean wave, chemistry, and other types of Earth system models are often coupled together. The OASIS software package is used by several groups around the world, and this paper describes features of the latest implementation.

The GPP model can be used to simulate the process path and run-out area of gravitational processes based on a digital terrain model. By providing several modelling approaches, the tool can be configured for different processes such as rockfall, debris flows or snow avalanches. The tool can be applied to regional-scale studies such as natural hazard susceptibility mapping. It is implemented as tool for SAGA GIS and has been released as open source.

Fire emission estimates are a key input dataset for climate models. We have merged satellite information with proxy datasets and fire models to reconstruct fire emissions since 1750 AD. Our dataset indicates that, on a global scale, fire emissions were relatively constant over time. Since roughly 1950, declining emissions from savannas were approximately balanced by increased emissions from tropical deforestation zones.

Stratospheric aerosols play an important role in the climate system by affecting the Earth's radiative budget. In this article we present the newly developed LMDZ-S3A model and assess its performance against observations in periods of low and high aerosol loading. The model may serve as a tool to study the climate impacts of volcanic eruptions, as well as the deliberate injection of aerosols into the stratosphere, which has been proposed as a method of geoengineering to abate global warming.

Flux towers measure energy, carbon dioxide and water vapour fluxes. These data have become essential for evaluating land surface models (LSMs) – key tools for projecting future climate change. However, these data as released are not immediately usable with LSMs and must be post-processed to change units, screened for missing data and gap-filling. We present an open-source R package that transforms flux tower measurements into a format directly usable by LSMs.

A probabilistic model, named BayGmmKda, is proposed for flood susceptibility assessment in central Vietnam. The model is a combination of Gaussian mixture model and radial-basis-function Fisher discriminant analysis. A geographic information system (GIS) database has been established for model construction. The proposed model can accurately establish a flood susceptibility map for the study region. Local authorities can use this map for land-use planning.

The study of lakes often uses numerical models to reproduce the processes occurring in nature as accurately as possible. Due to the complexity of natural systems, all numerical models need to leave aside or simplify many of the relevant processes. In this work, we improve the modelling of the impact of wind on the internal currents in deep lakes. This improves the reproduction of deep mixing, which influences the concentrations of oxygen and nutrients, with biological and chemical consequences.

This research investigates the role and importance of reprojecting geographic information system layers used by weather numerical models as input by performing sensitivity studies of greenhouse gas transport and dispersion in northeastern Pennsylvania. To bridge the gap between geographic information system data and atmospheric models, this study presents an innovative approach by creating R code to automatically generate model input from geographic data and analyze the model output.

We evaluate a new cost-effective method to simulate pollutant dispersion at high resolution on a city-wide domain. The method is based on a catalogue of reference simulations matched to weather observations to produce a sequence of hourly pollution maps. A total of 2 years of simulations are compared with continuous measurements and passive NO₂ samplers in the city of Zurich. Spatial and temporal variability proved to be very well reproduced by the method.

Global warming projections still suffer from a limited representation of the permafrost–carbon feedback. This study assesses the capacity of snow-soil coupled models to simulate the permafrost thermal regime at Bylot Island, a high Arctic site. Significant flaws are found in the description of Arctic snow properties, resulting in erroneous heat transfers between the soil and the snow in simulations. Improved snow schemes are needed to accurately predict the future of permafrost.

We reformulate the land biosphere of the reduced-complexity DCESS model by introducing three vegetation types and relating their latitudinal borders to global temperature change. This enhancement yields more realistic estimates of biosphere carbon cycling for cold conditions like the Last Glacial Maximum. As a first application we conduct transient simulations across the last glacial termination to estimate the importance of different processes on temperature, pCO₂ and carbon isotope ratios.

How carbon is allocated to different plant tissues (leaves, stem, and roots) determines carbon residence time and thus remains a central challenge for understanding the global carbon cycle. In this paper, we compared standard and novel carbon allocation schemes in CLM4.5 and evaluated them using eddy covariance wood and leaf biomass. The dynamic scheme based on work by Litton improved model performance, but this was dependent on model assumptions about woody turnover.

Accurate representation of land-atmosphere carbon fluxes is essential for future climate projections, although some of the responses of CO₂ fluxes to climate often remain uncertain. The increase in available data allows for new approaches in their modelling. We automatically developed models for ecosystem and soil carbon respiration using a machine learning approach. When compared with established respiration models, we found that they are better in prediction as well as offering new insights.

We present a new water percolation routine added to the Crocus model. The new routine is physically based, describing motion of water through a layered snowpack considering capillary-driven and gravity flow. We tested the routine on two data sets. Wet-snow layers were able to reach higher saturations than the empirical routine. Meaningful applicability is limited until new and better parameterizations of water retention are developed, and feedbacks are adjusted to handle higher saturations.

The paper shows it is possible to automatically calibrate the parameters in the atmospheric component of two climate models. The resulting atmosphere–ocean models are often, but not always, stable and realistic. The computational cost to do this is feasible. The implications are that it is possible to generate multiple configurations of a single model with different parameter values but which all look similar to the standard model and that the techniques could be used to calibrate other models.

Ellipsoids are the only bodies for which the self-demagnetization can be treated analytically. This property is useful for modelling compact orebodies having high susceptibility. We present a review of the magnetic modelling of ellipsoids, propose a way of determining the isotropic susceptibility above which the self-demagnetization must be considered, and discuss the ambiguity between confocal ellipsoids, as well as provide a set of routines to model the magnetic field produced by ellipsoids.

This article analyses regional changes in climate extremes as a function of projected changes in global mean temperature. We introduce the DROUGHT-HEAT Regional Climate Atlas, an interactive tool to analyse and display a range of well-established climate extremes and water-cycle indices and their changes as a function of global warming. Readers are encouraged to use the online tool for visualization of specific indices of interest, e.g. to assess their response to 1.5 or 2 °C global warming.