skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Search for: All records

Creators/Authors contains: "Johnson, Ben"

Note: When clicking on a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, you will be taken to an external site maintained by the publisher. Some full text articles may not yet be available without a charge during the embargo (administrative interval).
What is a DOI Number?

Some links on this page may take you to non-federal websites. Their policies may differ from this site.

  1. Abstract. Climate variability in the last millennium (past 1000 years) is dominated by the effects of large-magnitude volcanic eruptions; however, a long-standing mismatch exists between model-simulated and tree-ring-derived surface cooling. Accounting for the self-limiting effects of large sulfur dioxide (SO2) injections and the limitations in tree-ring records, such as lagged responses due to biological memory, reconciles some of the discrepancy, but uncertainties remain, particularly for the largest tropical eruptions. The representation of volcanic forcing in the latest generation of climate models has improved significantly, but most models prescribe the aerosol optical properties rather than using SO2 emissions directly and including interactions between the aerosol, chemistry, and dynamics. Here, we use the UK Earth System Model (UKESM) to simulate the climate of the last millennium (1250–1850 CE) using volcanic SO2 emissions. Averaged across all large-magnitude eruptions, we find similar Northern Hemisphere (NH) summer cooling compared with other last-millennium climate simulations from the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project Phase 4 (PMIP4), run with both SO2 emissions and prescribed forcing, and a continued overestimation of surface cooling compared with tree-ring reconstructions. However, for the largest-magnitude tropical eruptions in 1257 (Mt. Samalas) and 1815 (Mt. Tambora), some models, including UKESM1, suggest a smaller NH summer cooling that is in better agreement with tree-ring records. In UKESM1, we find that the simulated volcanic forcing differs considerably from the PMIP4 dataset used in models without interactive aerosol schemes, with marked differences in the hemispheric spread of the aerosol, resulting in lower forcing in the NH when SO2 emissions are used. Our results suggest that, for the largest tropical eruptions, the spatial distribution of aerosol can account for some of the discrepancies between model-simulated and tree-ring-derived cooling. Further work should therefore focus on better resolving the spatial distribution of aerosol forcing for past eruptions. 
    more » « less
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available January 1, 2026
  2. Abstract We examined microbial succession along a glacier forefront in the Antarctic Peninsula representing ∼30 years of deglaciation to contrast bacterial and eukaryotic successional dynamics and abiotic drivers of community assembly using sequencing and soil properties. Microbial communities changed most rapidly early along the chronosequence, and co-occurrence network analysis showed the most complex topology at the earliest stage. Initial microbial communities were dominated by microorganisms derived from the glacial environment, whereas later stages hosted a mixed community of taxa associated with soils. Eukaryotes became increasingly dominated by Cercozoa, particularly Vampyrellidae, indicating a previously unappreciated role for cercozoan predators during early stages of primary succession. Chlorophytes and Charophytes (rather than cyanobacteria) were the dominant primary producers and there was a spatio-temporal sequence in which major groups became abundant succeeding from simple ice Chlorophytes to Ochrophytes and Bryophytes. Time since deglaciation and pH were the main abiotic drivers structuring both bacterial and eukaryotic communities. Determinism was the dominant assembly mechanism for Bacteria, while the balance between stochastic/deterministic processes in eukaryotes varied along the distance from the glacier front. This study provides new insights into the unexpected dynamic changes and interactions across multiple trophic groups during primary succession in a rapidly changing polar ecosystem. 
    more » « less
  3. The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) forms a continuous and dynamic network throughout a neuron, extending from dendrites to axon terminals, and axonal ER dysfunction is implicated in several neurological disorders. In addition, tight junctions between the ER and plasma membrane (PM) are formed by several molecules including Kv2 channels, but the cellular functions of many ER-PM junctions remain unknown. Recently, dynamic Ca 2+ uptake into the ER during electrical activity was shown to play an essential role in synaptic transmission. Our experiments demonstrate that Kv2.1 channels are necessary for enabling ER Ca 2+ uptake during electrical activity, as knockdown (KD) of Kv2.1 rendered both the somatic and axonal ER unable to accumulate Ca 2+ during electrical stimulation. Moreover, our experiments demonstrate that the loss of Kv2.1 in the axon impairs synaptic vesicle fusion during stimulation via a mechanism unrelated to voltage. Thus, our data demonstrate that a nonconducting role of Kv2.1 exists through its binding to the ER protein VAMP-associated protein (VAP), which couples ER Ca 2+ uptake with electrical activity. Our results further suggest that Kv2.1 has a critical function in neuronal cell biology for Ca 2+ handling independent of voltage and reveals a critical pathway for maintaining ER lumen Ca 2+ levels and efficient neurotransmitter release. Taken together, these findings reveal an essential nonclassical role for both Kv2.1 and the ER-PM junctions in synaptic transmission. 
    more » « less
  4. The dataset is comprised of analyses of sediment cores and sediment trap samples from ferruginous and meromictic Brownie Lake, Minnesota, U.S.A from January 2018 through February 2021. The dataset includes bulk sediment characteristics including water content, grain size, major and minor elements. Voltammetric scans were collected on porewaters and lake waters. Sediment porewaters were analyzed for pH, total alkalinity, ferrous iron, and dissolved sulfur species contents. Sediment samples were maintained under the exclusion of oxygen for analysis by synchrotron-based X-ray absorption spectroscopy. 
    more » « less