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VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
PRODID:UW-Madison-Physics-Events
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SEQUENCE:0
UID:UW-Physics-Event-4520
DTSTART:20170418T170500Z
DTEND:20170418T180000Z
DTSTAMP:20260414T050906Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20170317T161927Z
LOCATION:4274 Chamberlin (refreshments will be served)
SUMMARY:Life inside the black box: Soil microbes\, climate change\, an
 d fire\, Chaos & Complex Systems Seminar\,  Thea Whitman\, UW Departme
 nt of Soil Science
DESCRIPTION:Although charcoal is renowned for its persistence and stab
 ility in soils\, it is actually a dynamic and heterogeneous material. 
 Today\, pyrolyzed organic matter is important not only in fire-affecte
 d ecosystems\, but also in managed systems\, where it may be produced 
 intentionally as an agricultural soil amendment or for carbon manageme
 nt / climate change mitigation. How soil microbes respond to these inp
 uts is critical for determining the net climate impact\, and is only j
 ust being revealed\, through advances in stable isotope and high-throu
 ghput sequencing techniques.<br><br>
\n<br><br>
\nThe implication for 
 real weather systems is that precipitation\, an important climate vari
 able and by-product of rising moist air\, possesses some form of chaos
 . This is made more complex because precipitating weather releases con
 densational heating\, a positive feedback on the circulation. The prop
 erties of chaotic precipitation necessarily depend on the wide varieti
 es space and time scales\, ranging from local transient torrential thu
 nderstorms to regional monthly heavy rain totals.<br><br>
\n<br><br>
\
 nThe edges of the attractor basin of precipitation are important becau
 se of their impact on ecology and human activities. Examples show how 
 the probability distributions of heavy rain differ greatly from those 
 of temperature\, wind\, etc. These empirical distributions are uncerta
 in due to limited data length (e.g.\, 120 years) and improbability of 
 extreme events.  <br><br>
\n<br><br>
\nSome questions of interpretatio
 n for power law-like relations and dependence on duration will be disc
 ussed.  Finally\, the implications of a temperature-dependent water va
 por constraint suggest how global warming may lead to increasing limit
 s of extreme precipitation.
URL:https://www.physics.wisc.edu/events/?id=4520
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