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Creators/Authors contains: "Watts, J."

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  1. Abstract Fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) from open water bodies are critical components of carbon‐climate feedbacks in high latitudes. Processes governing the spatial and temporal variability of these aquatic greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes are still highly uncertain due to limited observational data sets and lack of modeling studies incorporating comprehensive thermal and biochemical processes. This research investigates how slight variations in climate propagate through the biogeochemical cycles of ponds and resulting impacts on GHG emissions. We examine the thermal and biogeochemical dynamics of two ponds in the Yukon–Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska, under varying climatic conditions to study the impacts on CO2, CH4, and oxygen (O2) concentrations and fluxes. We performed multiple numerical experiments, using the LAKE process‐based model and field measurements, to analyze how these ponds respond to variations in air temperature, shortwave radiation, and snow cover. Our study demonstrates that ice cover duration and water temperature are primary climatic drivers of GHG fluxes. Climate experiments led to reductions in ice cover duration and increased water temperatures, which subsequently enhanced CH4and CO2gas emissions from two study ponds. On average, cumulative CH4and CO2emissions were 5% and 10% higher, respectively, under increases in air temperature and shortwave radiation. Additionally, we uncovered a need to incorporate groundwater influxes of dissolved gases and nutrients in order to fully represent processes governing aquatic biochemical activity. Our work highlights the importance of understanding local‐scale processes in predicting future Arctic contributions to GHG emissions. 
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  2. The non-local spin valve (NLSV) is a useful device for studying spin transport at nanoscopic dimensions, with potential technological applications. Despite this appeal, background signals, unrelated to spin diffusion, often hinder the interpretation of spin signals in NLSVs and could compromise performance in future devices. In this paper, we comprehensively investigate these background signals in all-metallic NLSVs fabricated from a variety of ferromagnetic (FM; N i 80 F e 20 , Fe, Co) and nonmagnetic (NM; Al, Cu) metals. We demonstrate that a background signal emerges in AC measurements, with contributions from both current spreading and thermoelectric effects, with a complex dependence on both temperature and FM injector-detector separation. Despite the complexity of these dependencies, we demonstrate excellent agreement with three-dimensional finite-element modelling that accounts for current-spreading and thermoelectric effects, across a wide range of temperatures, FM separations, and FM/NM pairings. This approach additionally offers a means to estimate the Seebeck coefficients for the tested FM/NM pairings, providing further insight into the charge and heat flow in such nanoscopic spintronic devices. Published by the American Physical Society2024 
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  3. For applications such as spin accumulation sensors for next-generation hard disk drive read heads, and for fundamental research, it is desirable to increase the spin signal in metallic non-local spin valves, which are central devices in spintronics. To this end, here, we report on the integration of high-spin-polarization Co–Fe binary alloy ferromagnetic injectors and detectors in Al-based non-local spin valves. Room-temperature deposition on amorphous substrates from an alloy target is shown to generate smooth, polycrystalline (110-textured), solid-solution body-centered-cubic Co75Fe25 films, which we characterize by energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction, x-ray reflectivity, atomic force microscopy, and electronic transport. Simple integration into transparent-interface Al non-local spin valves is then shown to realize up to a factor of ∼5 enhancement of the spin signal relative to Co, with full quantitative analysis yielding strikingly temperature-independent current spin polarizations exceeding 60%. We make a detailed quantitative comparison of these values with prior literature, concluding that Co–Fe alloys present a remarkably facile route to higher spin polarization and spin signals in non-local spin valves, with minimal barrier to adoption. 
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  4. Abstract Large stocks of soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) in northern permafrost soils are vulnerable to remobilization under climate change. However, there are large uncertainties in present‐day greenhouse gas (GHG) budgets. We compare bottom‐up (data‐driven upscaling and process‐based models) and top‐down (atmospheric inversion models) budgets of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) as well as lateral fluxes of C and N across the region over 2000–2020. Bottom‐up approaches estimate higher land‐to‐atmosphere fluxes for all GHGs. Both bottom‐up and top‐down approaches show a sink of CO2in natural ecosystems (bottom‐up: −29 (−709, 455), top‐down: −587 (−862, −312) Tg CO2‐C yr−1) and sources of CH4(bottom‐up: 38 (22, 53), top‐down: 15 (11, 18) Tg CH4‐C yr−1) and N2O (bottom‐up: 0.7 (0.1, 1.3), top‐down: 0.09 (−0.19, 0.37) Tg N2O‐N yr−1). The combined global warming potential of all three gases (GWP‐100) cannot be distinguished from neutral. Over shorter timescales (GWP‐20), the region is a net GHG source because CH4dominates the total forcing. The net CO2sink in Boreal forests and wetlands is largely offset by fires and inland water CO2emissions as well as CH4emissions from wetlands and inland waters, with a smaller contribution from N2O emissions. Priorities for future research include the representation of inland waters in process‐based models and the compilation of process‐model ensembles for CH4and N2O. Discrepancies between bottom‐up and top‐down methods call for analyses of how prior flux ensembles impact inversion budgets, more and well‐distributed in situ GHG measurements and improved resolution in upscaling techniques. 
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