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1. Enhancing Understanding of the Hydrological Cycle via Pairing of Process‐Oriented and Isotope Ratio Tracers

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2021MS002648  

   Fiorella, Richard P.; Siler, Nicholas; Nusbaumer, Jesse; Noone, David C. (October 2021, Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems)

   Abstract The hydrologic cycle couples the Earth's energy and carbon budgets through evaporation, moisture transport, and precipitation. Despite a wealth of observations and models, fundamental limitations remain in our capacity to deduce even the most basic properties of the hydrological cycle, including the spatial pattern of the residence time (RT) of water in the atmosphere and the mean distance traveled from evaporation sources to precipitation sinks. Meanwhile, geochemical tracers such as stable water isotope ratios provide a tool to probe hydrological processes, yet their interpretation remains equivocal despite several decades of use. As a result, there is a need for new mechanistic tools that link variations in water isotope ratios to underlying hydrological processes. Here we present a new suite of “process‐oriented tags,” which we use to explicitly trace hydrological processes within the isotopically enabled Community Atmosphere Model, version 6 (iCAM6). Using these tags, we test the hypotheses that precipitation isotope ratios respond to parcel rainout, variations in atmospheric RT, and preserve information regarding meteorological conditions during evaporation. We present results for a historical simulation from 1980 to 2004, forced with winds from the ERA5 reanalysis. We find strong evidence that precipitation isotope ratios record information about atmospheric rainout and meteorological conditions during evaporation, but little evidence that precipitation isotope ratios vary with water vapor RT. These new tracer methods will enable more robust linkages between observations of isotope ratios in the modern hydrologic cycle or proxies of past terrestrial environments and the environmental processes underlying these observations. 

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2. Radon Isotopes and Stable Water Isotopes from Coal Creek Watershed, Colorado (2021)

   https://doi.org/10.15485/2283437  

   Johnson, Keira; Christensen, John; Williams, Kenneth Hurst; Gardner, William Payton; Sullivan, Pamela; Brown, Wendy; Beutler, Curtis; Thiros, Nicholas (January 2023, Environmental System Science Data Infrastructure for a Virtual Ecosystem; Watershed Function SFA)

   The radon isotope and stable water isotope data for Coal Creek Watershed, Colorado, consists of d2H, d18O, and 222Rn values from samples collected at 8 stream location along Coal Creek, samples from 7 groundwater springs within the watershed, and precipitation isotope samples collected by Next Generation Water Observing System (NGWOS) from a collector within the watershed. All stream and spring samples were collected between June and October, 2021, and precipitation isotope samples were collected between November 2020 and September 2021. These data were collected to evaluate how groundwater contributions to Coal Creek originating from a fractured hillslope and alluvial fan respond to summer monsoon rains and seasonal drying. Understanding of groundwater-surface water interactions in montane systems in critical for the future of water availability in the Western US as groundwater contributions are expected to become more important for sustaining summer stream flows. This data package contains: (1) a csv of all radon samples; (2) a csv of all stream and spring isotope samples; (3) a csv of precipitation isotope samples; and (4) a csv of locations for each sampling site. The dataset additionally includes a file-level metadata (flmd.csv) file that lists each file contained in the dataset with associated metadata; and a data dictionary (dd.csv) file that contains column/row headers used throughout the files along with a definition, units, and data type. 

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3. A characterization of Colorado Front Range and Denver Basin Aquifer System wateer stable isotope signatures

   Ulate, Isabella (August 2024, ProQuest)

   The Denver Basin Aquifer System (DBAS) is an important groundwater resource for Front Range communities and is currently experiencing increasing demand as populations grow and surface water supplies remain limited. It is necessary to better constrain aquifer recharge mechanisms to enable sustainable use of this resource. In other sedimentary basin aquifer systems, mountain front recharge has been shown to be a significant contributor to local basin groundwater recharge. In the DBAS, inputs from the mountain block are poorly understood, and previous numerical models have treated large segments of the mountain-front boundary as impermeable. However, there exist potential connections between the mountain block and the DBAS, either by direct contact of permeable units, which would facilitate underflow recharge into the basin, or by surface water infiltration to the aquifer units where they outcrop near the mountain front. To observe spatial and temporal relationships between mountain block water and DBAS water, we use water stable isotopes and characterize the d2H and d18O of monthly precipitation, seasonal surface waters, and groundwaters in and around the Front Range and Denver Basin. The goal of this study is to determine if differences in the isotopic composition of waters across the Front Range permit the use of d18O and d2H as tracers of water flow between Front Range streams and groundwater and the DBAS. We analyzed the unique signature of mountain-block water to compare with DBAS water stable isotope data collected from Castle Rock Water municipal wells. Stable isotope ratios varied spatially and temporally, with the greatest temporal variance observed in precipitation. Streams showed great spatial variance, and less significant seasonal variance between the three seasonal sampling events conducted. Groundwaters showed very little temporal variance but had great spatial variance both between the aquifer units of the DBAS and between different locations within the mountain block crystalline aquifer. The lowest d2H and d18O ratios were measured in winter precipitation, winter streams, and groundwater samples collected from the high-elevation Front Range. Samples of DBAS groundwaters with the lowest d2H and d18O ratios indicate potential hydrogeologic connection to the mountain block. Interpreted mixing lines on a d-excess versus d18O plot support the potential DBAS-mountain block connection. The deepest aquifer units of the DBAS (Arapahoe and Laramie-Fox Hills) show the least relationship with meteoric or surface waters on both a d2H and d18O plot and the d-excess versus d18O plot and have higher d18O values than would be predicted based on their previously measured recharge ages and paleoclimate data from the region. Characterizing the spatial and temporal variations in water stable isotope signatures of the Front Range and DBAS region enhances understanding of the region’s hydrology and hydrogeology. Additionally, these results help to better inform models of aquifer recharge and promote sustainable use of the DBAS resource. 

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4. Atmospheric river contributions to ice sheet hydroclimate at the Last Glacial Maximum

   https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7339985  

   Skinner, Christopher; Lora, Juan; Tabor, Clay; Zhu, Jiang (January 2022, Zenodo)

   This dataset contains the atmospheric river catalogues and the associated precipitation and temperature data for the Preindustrial and Last Glacial Maximum CESM2 simulations presented in the GRL manuscript:  Atmospheric river contributions to ice sheet hydro climate at the Last Glacial Maximum. The atmospheric river catalogue files (zipped) are in netcdf format and organized by year. There are 100 years of data for both simulations.  The Preindustrial simulation catalogue begins in model year 41 and ends in model year 140.  The LGM simulation catalogue begins in model year 1 and ends in year 100. Each yearly file has a temporal resolution of 6 hours (1460 time steps each file) and a spatial resolution of 0.9° x 1.25° (the native resolution of the CESM simulation). A variable in the file called "ar_binary_tag" indicates whether an atmospheric river is present at each grid cell and each tilmestep: 1 indicates an atmospheric river is present; 0 indicates an atmospheric river is not present.  The precipitation and temperature files are 100-year annual or 100-year seasonal averages of atmospheric river precipitation/temperature. See the Methods section of the article for more details on the atmospheric river detection algorithm and precipitation/temperature calculations. Associated article abstract: Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are an important driver of surface mass balance over today’s Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Using paleoclimate simulations with the Community Earth System Model, we find ARs also had a key influence on the extensive ice sheets of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). ARs provide up to 53% of total precipitation along the margins of the eastern Laurentide ice sheet and up to 22-27% of precipitation along the margins of the Patagonian, western Cordilleran, and western Fennoscandian ice sheets. Despite overall cold conditions at the LGM, surface temperatures during AR events are often above freezing, resulting in more rain than snow along ice sheet margins and conditions that promote surface melt. The results suggest  ARs may have had an important role in ice sheet growth and melt during previous glacial periods and may have accelerated ice sheet retreat following the LGM. 

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5. A biodiversity dataset graph: DataONE

   https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1486279  

   Poelen, Jorrit H. (January 2018, Zenodo)

   {"Abstract":["The intended use of this archive is to facilitate meta-analysis of the Data Observation Network for Earth (DataONE, [1]). <\/p>\n\nDataONE is a distributed infrastructure that provides information about earth observation data. This dataset was derived from the DataONE network using Preston [2] between 17 October 2018 and 6 November 2018, resolving 335,213 urls at an average retrieval rate of about 5 seconds per url, or 720 files per hour, resulting in a data gzip compressed tar archive of 837.3 MB .  <\/p>\n\nThe archive associates 325,757 unique metadata urls [3] to 202,063 unique ecological metadata files [4]. Also, the DataONE search index was captured to establish provenance of how the dataset descriptors were found and acquired. During the creation of the snapshot (or crawl), 15,389 urls [5], or 4.7% of urls, did not successfully resolve. <\/p>\n\nTo facilitate discovery, the record of the Preston snapshot crawl is included in the preston-ls-* files . There files are derived from the rdf/nquad file with hash://sha256/8c67e0741d1c90db54740e08d2e39d91dfd73566ea69c1f2da0d9ab9780a9a9f . This file can also be found in the data.tar.gz at data/8c/67/e0/8c67e0741d1c90db54740e08d2e39d91dfd73566ea69c1f2da0d9ab9780a9a9f/data . For more information about concepts and format, please see [2]. <\/p>\n\nTo extract all EML files from the included Preston archive, first extract the hashes assocated with EML files using:<\/p>\n\ncat preston-ls.tsv.gz | gunzip | grep "Version" | grep -v "deeplinker" | grep -v "query/solr" | cut -f1,3 | tr '\\t' '\\n' | grep "hash://" | sort | uniq > eml-hashes.txt<\/p>\n\nextract data.tar.gz using:<\/p>\n\n~/preston-archive$$ tar xzf data.tar.gz <\/p>\n\nthen use Preston to extract each hash using something like:<\/p>\n\n~/preston-archive$$ preston get hash://sha256/00002d0fc9e35a9194da7dd3d8ce25eddee40740533f5af2397d6708542b9baa\n<eml:eml xmlns:eml="eml://ecoinformatics.org/eml-2.1.1" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:stmml="http://www.xml-cml.org/schema/stmml_1.1" packageId="doi:10.18739/A24P9Q" system="https://arcticdata.io" scope="system" xsi:schemaLocation="eml://ecoinformatics.org/eml-2.1.1 ~/development/eml/eml.xsd">\n  <dataset>\n    <alternateIdentifier>urn:x-wmo:md:org.aoncadis.www::d76bc3b5-7b19-11e4-8526-00c0f03d5b7c</alternateIdentifier>\n    <alternateIdentifier>d76bc3b5-7b19-11e4-8526-00c0f03d5b7c</alternateIdentifier>\n    <title>Airglow Image Data 2011 4 of 5</title>\n...<\/p>\n\nAlternatively, without using Preston, you can extract the data using the naming convention:<\/p>\n\ndata/[x]/[y]/[z]/[hash]/data<\/p>\n\nwhere x is the first 2 characters of the hash, y the second 2 characters, z the third 2 characters, and hash the full sha256 content hash of the EML file.<\/p>\n\nFor example, the hash hash://sha256/00002d0fc9e35a9194da7dd3d8ce25eddee40740533f5af2397d6708542b9baa can be found in the file: data/00/00/2d/00002d0fc9e35a9194da7dd3d8ce25eddee40740533f5af2397d6708542b9baa/data . For more information, see [2].<\/p>\n\nThe intended use of this archive is to facilitate meta-analysis of the DataONE dataset network. <\/p>\n\n[1] DataONE, https://www.dataone.org\n[2] https://preston.guoda.bio, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1410543 . DataONE was crawled via Preston with "preston update -u https://dataone.org".\n[3] cat preston-ls.tsv.gz | gunzip | grep "Version" | grep -v "deeplinker" | grep -v "query/solr" | cut -f1,3 | tr '\\t' '\\n' | grep -v "hash://" | sort | uniq | wc -l\n[4] cat preston-ls.tsv.gz | gunzip | grep "Version" | grep -v "deeplinker" | grep -v "query/solr" | cut -f1,3 | tr '\\t' '\\n' | grep "hash://" | sort | uniq | wc -l\n[5] cat preston-ls.tsv.gz | gunzip | grep "Version" | grep  "deeplinker" | grep -v "query/solr" | cut -f1,3 | tr '\\t' '\\n' | grep -v "hash://" | sort | uniq | wc -l<\/p>\n\nThis work is funded in part by grant NSF OAC 1839201 from the National Science Foundation.<\/p>"]} 

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