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Institution

Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research

FacilityBirmensdorf, Switzerland
About: Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research is a facility organization based out in Birmensdorf, Switzerland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Climate change & Soil water. The organization has 1256 authors who have published 3222 publications receiving 161639 citations. The organization is also known as: WSL.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Given the increasing stress in a changing environment, this review discusses how integrated diagnostic approaches lead to better causal analysis to be applied for specific monitoring of stress factors affecting forest ecosystems.

163 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: These findings show that trees prioritize the investment of assimilates below ground, probably to regain root functions after drought, and propose that root restoration plays a key role in ecosystem resilience to drought, in that the increased sink activity controls the recovery of carbon balances.
Abstract: Climate projections predict higher precipitation variability with more frequent dry extremes(1). CO2 assimilation of forests decreases during drought, either by stomatal closure(2) or by direct environmental control of sink tissue activities(3). Ultimately, drought effects on forests depend on the ability of forests to recover, but the mechanisms controlling ecosystem resilience are uncertain(4). Here, we have investigated the effects of drought and drought release on the carbon balances in beech trees by combining CO2 flux measurements, metabolomics and (13)CO2 pulse labelling. During drought, net photosynthesis (AN), soil respiration (RS) and the allocation of recent assimilates below ground were reduced. Carbohydrates accumulated in metabolically resting roots but not in leaves, indicating sink control of the tree carbon balance. After drought release, RS recovered faster than AN and CO2 fluxes exceeded those in continuously watered trees for months. This stimulation was related to greater assimilate allocation to and metabolization in the rhizosphere. These findings show that trees prioritize the investment of assimilates below ground, probably to regain root functions after drought. We propose that root restoration plays a key role in ecosystem resilience to drought, in that the increased sink activity controls the recovery of carbon balances.

163 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, two different types of hydrological models, the physically based WaSiM-ETH model and the conceptual PREVAH model, were used to simulate runoff generation in the Rietholzbach and Dischmabach catchments.
Abstract: In mountainous catchments the quality of runoff modelling depends strongly on the assessment of the spatial differences in the generation of the various runoff components and of the flow paths as coupled with the amount and intensity of precipitation and/or the snow melting. These catchments are also suitable for the intercomparison of different kinds of hydrological models, particularly of different approaches for the simulation of runoff generation. Two differently structured catchment models were applied on the pre-alpine Rietholzbach research catchment (3.2 km 2 ) within the period 1981-98 and on the high-alpine Dischmabach catchment (43 km 2 ) within the period 1981-96 for the simulation of hydrological processes and of the runoff hydrographs. The models adopted are the more physically based WaSiM-ETH model, with grid-oriented computation of the water balance elements, and the rather conceptual PREVAH model, based on hydrological response units. The simulation results and the differences resulting from the application of the two models are discussed and compared with the observed catchment discharges, with measurements of evapotranspiration, soil moisture, outflow of a lysimeter, and of groundwater levels in three access tubes. The model intercomparison indicates that the two approaches for determining runoff generation with different degrees of complexity performed with similar statistical efficiency over a period longer than 15 years. The analysis of the simulated runoff components shows that the interflow is the main runoff component and that the portion of the runoff components depends strongly on the approach used. The snowmelt model component is of decisive importance in the snowmelt season and needs to take into account the role of air temperature and radiation for simulating runoff generation in a spatially distributed manner.

163 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a case study of the extra-tropical millennial-length temperature reconstruction that shows increasing variability back in time is presented, where the variance adjusted record shows greatest differences before 1200 when sample replication is quite low.
Abstract: [1] Proxy records may display fluctuations in climate variability that are artifacts of changing replication and interseries correlation of constituent time-series and also from methodological considerations. These biases obscure the understanding of past climatic variability, including estimation of extremes, differentiation between natural and anthropogenic forcing, and climate model validation. Herein, we evaluate as a case-study, the Esper et al. (2002) extra-tropical millennial-length temperature reconstruction that shows increasing variability back in time. We provide adjustments considering biases at both the site and hemispheric scales. The variance adjusted record shows greatest differences before 1200 when sample replication is quite low. A reduced amplitude of peak warmth during Medieval Times by about 0.4°C (0.2°C) at annual (40-year) timescales slightly re-draws the longer-term evolution of past temperatures. Many other regional and large-scale reconstructions appear to contain variance-related biases.

163 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a set of 17 different models were compared over 21 test cases and compared against direct measurements of the mean ice thickness, revealing deviations on the order of 10'±'24'% of the estimated thickness.
Abstract: . Knowledge of the ice thickness distribution of glaciers and ice caps is an important prerequisite for many glaciological and hydrological investigations. A wealth of approaches has recently been presented for inferring ice thickness from characteristics of the surface. With the Ice Thickness Models Intercomparison eXperiment (ITMIX) we performed the first coordinated assessment quantifying individual model performance. A set of 17 different models showed that individual ice thickness estimates can differ considerably – locally by a spread comparable to the observed thickness. Averaging the results of multiple models, however, significantly improved the results: on average over the 21 considered test cases, comparison against direct ice thickness measurements revealed deviations on the order of 10 ± 24 % of the mean ice thickness (1σ estimate). Models relying on multiple data sets – such as surface ice velocity fields, surface mass balance, or rates of ice thickness change – showed high sensitivity to input data quality. Together with the requirement of being able to handle large regions in an automated fashion, the capacity of better accounting for uncertainties in the input data will be a key for an improved next generation of ice thickness estimation approaches.

163 citations


Authors

Showing all 1333 results

NameH-indexPapersCitations
Peter H. Verburg10746434254
Bernhard Schmid10346046419
Christian Körner10337639637
André S. H. Prévôt9051138599
Fortunat Joos8727636951
Niklaus E. Zimmermann8027739364
Robert Huber7831125131
David Frank7818618624
Jan Esper7525419280
James W. Kirchner7323821958
David B. Roy7025026241
Emmanuel Frossard6835615281
Derek Eamus6728517317
Benjamin Poulter6625522519
Ulf Büntgen6531615876
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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers from the Institution in previous years
YearPapers
2023111
2022173
2021395
2020327
2019269
2018281