Soil moisture is an essential climate variable (ECV) of major importance for land–atmosphere interactions and global hydrology. An appropriate representation of soil moisture dynamics in global climate models is therefore important. Recently, a first multidecadal, observation-based soil moisture dataset has become available that provides information on soil moisture dynamics from satellite obse...

Increased tree growth in temperate and boreal forests has been proposed as a direct consequence of a warming climate. Acid deposition effects on nutrient availability may influence the climate dependency of tree growth, however. This study presents an analysis of archived soil samples that has enabled changes in soil chemistry to be tracked with patterns of tree growth through the 20th century....

[1] Soil moisture trends, particularly during the growing season, are an important possible consequence of global warming. Climate model simulations of future soil moisture changes should be made with models that can produce reliable simulations of soil moisture for past climate changes. In this paper, we compare soil moisture simulations from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth As...

Decomposition of plant residues is largely mediated by soil-dwelling microorganisms whose activities are influenced by both climate conditions and properties of the soil. However, a comprehensive understanding of their relative importance remains elusive, mainly because traditional methods, such as soil incubation and environmental surveys, have a limited ability to differentiate between the co...

Climate, vegetation, and soil characteristics play important roles in regulating the spatial variation in carbon dioxide fluxes, but their relative influence is still uncertain. In this study, we compiled data from 241 eddy covariance flux sites in the Northern Hemisphere and used Classification and Regression Trees and Redundancy Analysis to assess how climate, vegetation, and soil affect the ...

Global gridded crop models (GGCMs) are increasingly used for agro-environmental assessments and estimates of climate change impacts on food production. Recently, the influence of climate data and weather variability on GGCM outcomes has come under detailed scrutiny, unlike the influence of soil data. Here we compare yield variability caused by the soil type selected for GGCM simulations to weat...

a r t i c l e i n f o Here we analyze the past and present roles of the five soil-forming factors in USDA Soil Taxonomy. As opposed to the 7th Approximation of 1960, the factorial and genetic approach is clearly present in Soil Taxonomy. Soil climate is the most important factor in Soil Taxonomy. It is used at the highest level to define two of the 12 soil orders: Aridisols, the soils of the dr...

10 11 Abstract 12 13 Increased efficiency of nitrogen (N) fertilizer use may be achieved with management practices that account for spatial 14 variability in soil properties and temporal variability in climate. In this study, we develop a N management decision model for an 15 irrigated wheat system that incorporates hypothetical diagnostics of soil N and growing season climate. The model is the...