Crooks Stephen

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Crooks
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Stephen
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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Article
    Author Correction : Accuracy and precision of tidal wetland soil carbon mapping in the conterminous United States
    (Nature Publishing Group, 2018-10-09) Holmquist, James R. ; Windham-Myers, Lisamarie ; Bliss, Norman B. ; Crooks, Stephen ; Morris, James T. ; Megonigal, J. Patrick ; Troxler, Tiffany G. ; Weller, Donald ; Callaway, John ; Drexler, Judith ; Ferner, Matthew C. ; Gonneea, Meagan E. ; Kroeger, Kevin D. ; Schile-Beers, Lisa ; Woo, Isa ; Buffington, Kevin ; Breithaupt, Joshua ; Boyd, Brandon M. ; Brown, Lauren N. ; Dix, Nicole ; Hice, Lyndie ; Horton, Benjamin P. ; MacDonald, Glen M. ; Moyer, Ryan P. ; Reay, William ; Shaw, Timothy ; Smith, Erik ; Smoak, Joseph M. ; Sommerfield, Christopher K. ; Thorne, Karen ; Velinsky, David ; Watson, Elizabeth ; Wilson Grimes, Kristin ; Woodrey, Mark
    This Article corrects an error in Equation 1
  • Article
    Restoring tides to reduce methane emissions in impounded wetlands : a new and potent Blue Carbon climate change intervention
    (Nature Publishing Group, 2017-09-20) Kroeger, Kevin D. ; Crooks, Stephen ; Moseman-Valtierra, Serena M. ; Tang, Jianwu
    Coastal wetlands are sites of rapid carbon (C) sequestration and contain large soil C stocks. Thus, there is increasing interest in those ecosystems as sites for anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission offset projects (sometimes referred to as “Blue Carbon”), through preservation of existing C stocks or creation of new wetlands to increase future sequestration. Here we show that in the globallywidespread occurrence of diked, impounded, drained and tidally-restricted salt marshes, substantial methane (CH4) and CO2 emission reductions can be achieved through restoration of disconnected saline tidal flows. Modeled climatic forcing indicates that tidal restoration to reduce emissions has a much greater impact per unit area than wetland creation or conservation to enhance sequestration. Given that GHG emissions in tidally-restricted, degraded wetlands are caused by human activity, they are anthropogenic emissions, and reducing them will have an effect on climate that is equivalent to reduced emission of an equal quantity of fossil fuel GHG. Thus, as a landuse-based climate change intervention, reducing CH4 emissions is an entirely distinct concept from biological C sequestration projects to enhance C storage in forest or wetland biomass or soil, and will not suffer from the non-permanence risk that stored C will be returned to the atmosphere.
  • Article
    Uncertainty in United States coastal wetland greenhouse gas inventorying
    (IOP Science, 2018-11-12) Holmquist, James R. ; Windham-Myers, Lisamarie ; Bernal, Blanca ; Byrd, Kristin B. ; Crooks, Stephen ; Gonneea, Meagan E. ; Herold, Nate ; Knox, Sara H. ; Kroeger, Kevin D. ; McCombs, John ; Megonigal, J. Patrick ; Lu, Meng ; Morris, James T. ; Sutton-Grier, Ariana E. ; Troxler, Tiffany G.
    Coastal wetlands store carbon dioxide (CO2) and emit CO2 and methane (CH4) making them an important part of greenhouse gas (GHG) inventorying. In the contiguous United States (CONUS), a coastal wetland inventory was recently calculated by combining maps of wetland type and change with soil, biomass, and CH4 flux data from a literature review. We assess uncertainty in this developing carbon monitoring system to quantify confidence in the inventory process itself and to prioritize future research. We provide a value-added analysis by defining types and scales of uncertainty for assumptions, burial and emissions datasets, and wetland maps, simulating 10 000 iterations of a simplified version of the inventory, and performing a sensitivity analysis. Coastal wetlands were likely a source of net-CO2-equivalent (CO2e) emissions from 2006–2011. Although stable estuarine wetlands were likely a CO2e sink, this effect was counteracted by catastrophic soil losses in the Gulf Coast, and CH4 emissions from tidal freshwater wetlands. The direction and magnitude of total CONUS CO2e flux were most sensitive to uncertainty in emissions and burial data, and assumptions about how to calculate the inventory. Critical data uncertainties included CH4 emissions for stable freshwater wetlands and carbon burial rates for all coastal wetlands. Critical assumptions included the average depth of soil affected by erosion events, the method used to convert CH4 fluxes to CO2e, and the fraction of carbon lost to the atmosphere following an erosion event. The inventory was relatively insensitive to mapping uncertainties. Future versions could be improved by collecting additional data, especially the depth affected by loss events, and by better mapping salinity and inundation gradients relevant to key GHG fluxes. Social Media Abstract: US coastal wetlands were a recent and uncertain source of greenhouse gasses because of CH4 and erosion.
  • Article
    Accuracy and precision of tidal wetland soil carbon mapping in the conterminous United States
    (Nature Publishing Group, 2018-06-21) Holmquist, James R. ; Windham-Myers, Lisamarie ; Bliss, Norman B. ; Crooks, Stephen ; Morris, James T. ; Megonigal, J. Patrick ; Troxler, Tiffany G. ; Weller, Donald ; Callaway, John ; Drexler, Judith ; Ferner, Matthew C. ; Gonneea, Meagan E. ; Kroeger, Kevin D. ; Schile-Beers, Lisa ; Woo, Isa ; Buffington, Kevin ; Breithaupt, Joshua ; Boyd, Brandon M. ; Brown, Lauren N. ; Dix, Nicole ; Hice, Lyndie ; Horton, Benjamin P. ; MacDonald, Glen M. ; Moyer, Ryan P. ; Reay, William ; Shaw, Timothy ; Smith, Erik ; Smoak, Joseph M. ; Sommerfield, Christopher K. ; Thorne, Karen ; Velinsky, David ; Watson, Elizabeth ; Wilson Grimes, Kristin ; Woodrey, Mark
    Tidal wetlands produce long-term soil organic carbon (C) stocks. Thus for carbon accounting purposes, we need accurate and precise information on the magnitude and spatial distribution of those stocks. We assembled and analyzed an unprecedented soil core dataset, and tested three strategies for mapping carbon stocks: applying the average value from the synthesis to mapped tidal wetlands, applying models fit using empirical data and applied using soil, vegetation and salinity maps, and relying on independently generated soil carbon maps. Soil carbon stocks were far lower on average and varied less spatially and with depth than stocks calculated from available soils maps. Further, variation in carbon density was not well-predicted based on climate, salinity, vegetation, or soil classes. Instead, the assembled dataset showed that carbon density across the conterminous united states (CONUS) was normally distributed, with a predictable range of observations. We identified the simplest strategy, applying mean carbon density (27.0 kg C m−3), as the best performing strategy, and conservatively estimated that the top meter of CONUS tidal wetland soil contains 0.72 petagrams C. This strategy could provide standardization in CONUS tidal carbon accounting until such a time as modeling and mapping advancements can quantitatively improve accuracy and precision.