Sarquis, A.; Sierra, C. A.: Information content in time series of litter decomposition studies and the transit time of litter in arid lands. Biogeosciences 20 (9), pp. 1759 - 1771 (2023)
Giraldo, J. A.; Valle, J. I. d.; González-Caro, S.; David, D. A.; Taylor, T.; Tobón, C.; Sierra, C. A.: Tree growth periodicity in the ever-wet tropical forest of the Americas. Journal of Ecology 111 (4), pp. 889 - 902 (2023)
Sierra, C. A.; Quetin, G. R.; Metzler, H.; Mueller, M.: A decrease in the age of respired carbon from the terrestrial biosphere and increase in the asymmetry of its distribution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London - Series A: Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences 381 (2261), 20220200 (2023)
Wells, J. M.; Crow, S. E.; Sierra, C.; Deenik, J. L.; Carlson, K. M.; Meki, M. N.; Kiniry, J.: Edaphic controls of soil organic carbon in tropical agricultural landscapes. Scientific Reports 12, 21574 (2022)
Salazar, A.; Sanchez, A.; Dukes, J. S.; Salazar, J. F.; Clerici, N.; Lasso, E.; Sanchez-Pacheco, S. J.; Rendon, A. M.; Villegas, J. C.; Sierra, C.et al.; Poveda, G.; Quesada, B.; Uribe, M. R.; Rodríguez-Buritica, S.; Ungar, P.; Pulido-Santacruz, P.; Ruiz-Morato, N.; Arias, P. A.: Peace and the environment at the crossroads: Elections in a conflict-troubled biodiversity hotspot. Environmental Science and Policy 135, pp. 77 - 85 (2022)
Sarquis, A.; Siebenhart, I. A.; Austin, A. T.; Sierra, C. A.: Aridec: an open database of litter mass loss from aridlands worldwide with recommendations on suitable model applications. Earth System Science Data 14 (7), pp. 3471 - 3488 (2022)
Vásquez, M.; Lara, W.; del Valle, J. I.; Sierra, C.: Reconstructing past fossil-fuel CO2 concentrations using tree rings and radiocarbon in the urban area of Medellín, Colombia. Environmental Research Letters 17 (5), 055008 (2022)
Chanca, I.; Trumbore, S. E.; Macario, K.; Sierra, C.: Probability distributions of radiocarbon in open linear compartmental systems at steady-state. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 127 (3), e2021JG006673 (2022)
Azizi-Rad, M.; Guggenberger, G.; Mad, Y.; Sierra, C. A.: Sensitivity of soil respiration rate with respect to temperature, moisture and oxygen under freezing and thawing. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 165, 108488 (2022)
Heckman, K.; Hicks Pries, C. E.; Lawrence, C. R.; Rasmussen, C.; Crow , S. E.; Hoyt, A. M.; von Fromm, S. F.; Shi, Z.; Stoner, S.; McGrath, C.et al.; Beem-Miller, J.; Berhe, A. A.; Blankinship, J. C.; Keiluweit, M.; Marín-Spiotta, E.; Monroe, J. G.; Plante, A. F.; Schimel, J.; Sierra, C.; Thompson, A.; Wagai, R.: Beyond bulk: Density fractions explain heterogeneity in global soil carbon abundance and persistence. Global Change Biology 28 (3), pp. 1178 - 1196 (2022)
Giraldo, J. A.; del Valle, J. I.; González-Caro, S.; Sierra, C.: Intra-annual isotope variations in tree rings reveal growth rhythms within the least rainy season of an ever-wet tropical forest. Trees 36 (3), pp. 1039 - 1052 (2022)
Uribe, M. R.; Sierra, C.; Dukes, J. S.: Seasonality of tropical photosynthesis: A pantropical map of correlations with precipitation and radiation and comparison to model outputs. Biogeosciences 126 (11), e2020JG006123 (2021)
Stoner, S.; Hoyt, A. M.; Trumbore, S. E.; Sierra, C.; Schrumpf, M.; Doetterl, S.; Baisden, W. T.; Schipper, L. A.: Soil organic matter turnover rates increase to match increased inputs in grazed grasslands. Biogeochemistry 156, pp. 145 - 160 (2021)
The BIOMASS satellite was successfully launched into orbit on 29 April 2025. The BIOMASS mission is designed to map and monitor global forests. It will map the structure of different forest types and provide data on above-ground biomass.
Thanks to FLUXCOM-X, the next generation of data driven, AI-based earth system models, scientists can now see the Earth’s metabolism at unprecedented detail – assessed everywhere on land and every hour of the day.
Extreme climate events endanger groundwater quality and stability, when rain water evades natural purification processes in the soil. This was demonstrated in long-term groundwater analyses using new analytical methods.
Extreme precipitation should increase with warmer temperatures. Data from tropical regions show that this correlation is obscured by the cooling effect of clouds. When cloud effects are corrected, the increase in extreme precipitation with rising temperatures becomes apparent.
More frequent strong storms are destroying ever larger areas of the Amazon rainforest. Storm damage was mapped between 1985 and 2020. The total area of affected forests roughly quadrupled in the period studied.
David Hafezi Rachti was awarded twice: for his EGU poster with this year’s “Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation” (OSPP) and for his Bachelor thesis, he received the 1st prize of the “Young Climate Scientist Award 2024”.
The Global Carbon Project shows that fossil CO2 emissions will continue to rise in 2024. There is no sign of the rapid and substantial decline in emissions that would be needed to limit the impact of climate change
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina will hold a joint conference on the challenges of achieving carbon neutrality in Berlin on October 29-30, 2024.
Experts from science, journalism, local authorities and non-governmental organizations consider a change of course in communication on climate issues to be urgently needed. The appeal was published on the occasion of the K3 Congress on Climate Communication with around 400 participants in Graz.
A recent study by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and the University of Leipzig suggests that increasing droughts in the tropics and changing carbon cycle responses due to climate change are not primarily responsible for the strong tropical response to rising temperatures. Instead, a few particularly strong El Niño events could be the cause.