Soil redistribution and pedologic transformations in coastal plain croplands

In agricultural basins of the southeastern coastal plain there are typically large disparities between upland soil erosion and sediment delivered to streams. This suggests that colluvial storage and redistribution of eroded soil within croplands is occurring, and/or that processes other than fluvial erosion are at work. This study used soil morphology and stratigraphy as an indicator of erosion and deposition processes in a watershed at Littlefield, North Carolina. Soil stratigraphy and morphology reflect the ways in which mass fluxes associated with cultivation transform the local soils. Fluvial, aeolian and tillage processes were all found to be active in the redistribution of soil. The soil transformations are of five general types. First, erosion and compaction in the cultivated area as a whole result in the thinning of Arenic and Grossarenic Paleudults and Paleaquults to form Arenic, Typic and Aquic Paleudults and Paleaquults. Second, redistribution of surficial material within the fields results in transitions between Arenic and Typic or Aquic subgroups as loamy sand A and E horizons are truncated or accreted. Third, aeolian deposition at forested field boundaries leads to the formation of compound soils with podzolized features. Fourth, sandy rill fan deposits at slope bases create cumulic soils distinct from the loamy sands of the source area or the darker, finer terrace soils buried by the fan deposits. Finally, tillage and fluvial deposition in upland depressions results in the gradual burial of Rains (poorly drained Typic Paleaquults) soils. Results confirm the importance of upland sediment storage and redistribution, and the role of tillage and aeolian processes as well as fluvial processes in the region. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using dissolved gas analysis to investigate the performance of an organic carbon permeable reactive barrier for the treatment of mine drainage

The strongly reducing nature of permeable reactive barrier (PRB) treatment materials can lead to gas production, potentially resulting in the formation of gas bubbles and ebullition. Degassing in organic C based PRB systems due to the production of gases (primarily CO₂ and CH₄) is investigated using the depletion of naturally occurring non-reactive gases Ar and N₂, to identify, confirm, and quantify chemical and physical processes. Sampling and analysis of dissolved gases were performed at the Nickel Rim Mine Organic Carbon PRB, which was designed for the treatment of groundwater contaminated by low quality mine drainage characterized by slightly acidic pH, and elevated Fe(II) and SO₄ concentrations. A simple 4-gas degassing model was used to analyze the dissolved gas data, and the results indicate that SO₄ reduction is by far the dominant process of organic C consumption within the barrier. The data provided additional information to delineate rates of microbially mediated SO₄ reduction and confirm the presence of slow and fast flow zones within the barrier. Degassing was incorporated into multicomponent reactive transport simulations for the barrier and the simulations were successful in reproducing observed dissolved gas trends.     

Simulation of the West African monsoon onset using the HadGEM3-RA regional climate model

The performance of the Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model version 3 regional climate model (HadGEM3-RA) in simulating the West African monsoon (WAM) is investigated. We focus on performance for monsoon onset timing and for rainfall totals over the June–July–August (JJA) season and on the model’s representation of the underlying dynamical processes. Experiments are driven by the ERA-Interim reanalysis and follow the CORDEX experimental protocol. Simulations with the HadGEM3 global model, which shares a common physical formulation with HadGEM3-RA, are used to gain insight into the causes of HadGEM3-RA simulation errors. It is found that HadGEM3-RA simulations of monsoon onset timing are realistic, with an error in mean onset date of two pentads. However, the model has a dry bias over the Sahel during JJA of 15–20 %. Analysis suggests that this is related to errors in the positioning of the Saharan heat low, which is too far south in HadGEM3-RA and associated with an insufficient northward reach of the south-westerly low-level monsoon flow and weaker moisture convergence over the Sahel. Despite these biases HadGEM3-RA’s representation of the general rainfall distribution during the WAM appears superior to that of ERA-Interim when using Global Precipitation Climatology Project or Tropical Rain Measurement Mission data as reference. This suggests that the associated dynamical features seen in HadGEM3-RA can complement the physical picture available from ERA-Interim. This approach is supported by the fact that the global HadGEM3 model generates realistic simulations of the WAM without the benefit of pseudo-observational forcing at the lateral boundaries; suggesting that the physical formulation shared with HadGEM3-RA, is able to represent the driving processes. HadGEM3-RA simulations confirm previous findings that the main rainfall peak near 10°N during June–August is maintained by a region of mid-tropospheric ascent located, latitudinally, between the cores of the African Easterly Jet and Tropical Easterly Jet that intensifies around the time of onset. This region of ascent is weaker and located further south near 5°N in the driving ERA-Interim reanalysis, for reasons that may be related to the coarser resolution or the physics of the underlying model, and this is consistent with a less realistic latitudinal rainfall profile than found in the HadGEM3-RA simulations.