Santa Fe Institute Events Wiki - User contributions [en]

CSSS 2009 Santa Fe-Modeling-Cluster

2009-07-21T14:09:32Z

Adamwolf:

==Modeling Cluster==

Gina La Cerva, Joe Geddes, Regina Clewlow, Ho Nguyen, Christa Brelsford, Adam Wolf

==== Motivating questions:====
13) How can we better quantify uncertainty when we are in uncharted territory of the climate system (where change is happening faster and involving feedbacks we don't yet understand?

14) How do we develop useful integrated models? Are there feedback mechanisms that we don't understand?

27) What methods can be used and developed to quantify interactions between previously developed models of human, physical, and economic systems?

(I think this following question should be taken up by the ecosystem services group:)

31) What technologies or tools are still needed to evaluate environmental impacts?

==== Overall objectives to modeling ====

We agree that human-climate interactions are the most critical area of climate science modeling, because these have feedbacks which can either mitigate warming or amplify the consequences of warming. Furthermore these interactions are largely unexplored in a coupled system where feedbacks can be directly evaluated.

Several key human-climate interactions:

+ market dynamics that can lead to decarbonized energy technology implementation. tipping points. policy. investment.

- human migration

- increased energy use in adaptation, e.g. use of air conditioning

- infectious disease

==== Modeling Objectives ====

Several uses for models were identified, including

- policy evaluation (sensitivity analysis)

- validation

- forecasting and uncertainty analysis

==== Types of Models ====

- agent based modeling of markets, investment, policy

- agent based modeling of control systems

- scaling approaches to evaluate model realism --> implies data against which models can be evaluated

CSSS 2009 Santa Fe-Modeling-Cluster

2009-07-21T14:08:56Z

Adamwolf:

==Modeling Cluster==

Gina La Cerva, Joe Geddes, Regina Clewlow, Ho Nguyen, Christa Brelsford, Adam Wolf

====Our group is oriented around the following suite of questions:====
13) How can we better quantify uncertainty when we are in uncharted territory of the climate system (where change is happening faster and involving feedbacks we don't yet understand?

14) How do we develop useful integrated models? Are there feedback mechanisms that we don't understand?

27) What methods can be used and developed to quantify interactions between previously developed models of human, physical, and economic systems?

(I think this following question should be taken up by the ecosystem services group:)

31) What technologies or tools are still needed to evaluate environmental impacts?

==== Overall objectives to modeling ====

We agree that human-climate interactions are the most critical area of climate science modeling, because these have feedbacks which can either mitigate warming or amplify the consequences of warming. Furthermore these interactions are largely unexplored in a coupled system where feedbacks can be directly evaluated.

Several key human-climate interactions:

+ market dynamics that can lead to decarbonized energy technology implementation. tipping points. policy. investment.

- human migration

- increased energy use in adaptation, e.g. use of air conditioning

- infectious disease

==== Modeling Objectives ====

Several uses for models were identified, including

- policy evaluation (sensitivity analysis)

- validation

- forecasting and uncertainty analysis

==== Types of Models ====

- agent based modeling of markets, investment, policy

- agent based modeling of control systems

- scaling approaches to evaluate model realism --> implies data against which models can be evaluated

CSSS 2009 Santa Fe-Modeling-Cluster

2009-07-21T13:55:04Z

Adamwolf:

CSSS 2009 Santa Fe-Modeling-Cluster

2009-07-21T13:54:48Z

Adamwolf:

==Modeling Cluster==

Gina La Cerva, Joe Geddes, Regina Clewlow, Ho Nguyen, Christa Brelsford, Adam Wolf

===Our group is oriented around the following suite of questions:===
13) How can we better quantify uncertainty when we are in uncharted territory of the climate system (where change is happening faster and involving feedbacks we don't yet understand?

14) How do we develop useful integrated models? Are there feedback mechanisms that we don't understand?

27) What methods can be used and developed to quantify interactions between previously developed models of human, physical, and economic systems?

(I think this following question should be taken up by the ecosystem services group:)
31) What technologies or tools are still needed to evaluate environmental impacts?

CSSS 2009 Santa Fe-Modeling-Cluster

2009-07-21T13:53:56Z

Adamwolf:

==Modeling Cluster==

Gina La Cerva

Joe Geddes

Regina Clewlow

Ho Nguyen

Christa Brelsford

Adam Wolf

Our group is addressing the following suite of questions:
13) How can we better quantify uncertainty when we are in uncharted territory of the climate system (where change is happening faster and involving feedbacks we don't yet understand?

14) How do we develop useful integrated models? Are there feedback mechanisms that we don't understand?

27) What methods can be used and developed to quantify interactions between previously developed models of human, physical, and economic systems?

(I think this following question should be taken up by the ecosystem services group:)
31) What technologies or tools are still needed to evaluate environmental impacts?

CSSS 2009 Santa Fe-Modeling-Cluster

2009-07-21T13:53:15Z

Adamwolf: New page: ==Modeling Cluster== Gina La Cerva Joe Geddes Regina Clewlow Ho Christa Adam Wolf Our group is addressing the following suite of questions: 13) How can we better quantify uncertainty whe...

==Modeling Cluster==

Gina La Cerva
Joe Geddes
Regina Clewlow
Ho
Christa
Adam Wolf

Our group is addressing the following suite of questions:
13) How can we better quantify uncertainty when we are in uncharted territory of the climate system (where change is happening faster and involving feedbacks we don't yet understand?

14) How do we develop useful integrated models? Are there feedback mechanisms that we don't understand?

27) What methods can be used and developed to quantify interactions between previously developed models of human, physical, and economic systems?

(I think this following question should be taken up by the ecosystem services group:)
31) What technologies or tools are still needed to evaluate environmental impacts?

Summer School on Global Sustainability-Working Group Wiki Page

2009-07-21T13:49:42Z

Adamwolf:

Please refer to the [http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/CSSS_2009_Santa_Fe-Projects_%26_Working_Groups Complex Systems Summer School] groups page to get an idea of self organization and working groups.

=='''Cluster Research Ideas'''==

===Ecosystem Services, Biodiversity, Food and Ag===

1) How can the global food and land-use systems decrease their negative environmental impact and adapt to climate change while mitigating its effects?

2) Expanding and '''standardizing''' measurement, monitoring, and verification of global ecosystem services.

3) How can we sustainably use ocean and freshwater systems (drinking water, fishing, aquaculture, recreation, and biodiversity)?

===Developing World===

4) How to foster innovation/knowledge sharing within the developing world in regards to improving livelihoods & ensuring sustainability? (e.g. Indeigenous Knowledge, solutions appropriate for agricultural lifestyles)?

5) How would technological transfer from developed to developing nations (or vice versa) for climate change adaptation and mitigation actually occur? (e.g. acocuntability, $$, open source software, govt to govt, private to private, incentives for innovation)

6) How do we get to an equitable distribution of responsibility for climate change mitigation & adaptation around the globe? (e.g. emission reduction burdens, adaptation funds, ranking vulnerability)

===Policy/Regulatory Environment===

7) How can complexity science support streamlining development and adoption of technologies and practices?

8) How to effectively translate research into policy, practice and intervention (with diverse collaborators, partnerships, initiatives, etc.)

9) How do we transform policies affecting global sustainability (path dependence, complex adaptive policy, integration, scalability, etc.)

10) What types of policies can promote sustainability and how to meaningfully enforce them? (individual initiatives, systems approaches, international agreements)

===Decision Sciences===

11) How do we understand/how do we change/what are
the rules of the game, especially as applied to:
economic growth theory
agricultural/eco systems
social systems?

12) What drives societal transformation (in terms of values, norms, practices, and livelihoods strategies) & how can complex system science help to productively shed light on those processes?

===Climate Change===

13) How can we better quantify uncertainty when we are in uncharted territory of the climate system (where change is happening faster and involving feedbacks we don't yet understand?

14) How do we develop useful integrated models? Are there feedback mechanisms that we don't understand?

15) How does climate change affect uncertainties and challenges in modeling de-carbonization & the energy system?

===Human Well-Being, Sociology, Advocacy===

16) How can we best change consumption and political behaviors?

17) How can population growth be part of the dialogue?

18) What techniques & strategies from past social movements can be used to initiate and sustain new social movements?

19) How do cultural conceptions of nature influence sustainability? What kind of educational strategies are needed to foster values that facilitate sustainability?

20) How can we anticipate & mitigate resource-based human conflicts?

===Mitigation and Adaptation===

21) What technologies are still needed to evaluate environmental impacts?

22) What is our vision for a sustainable future?

23) Which low-carbon or carbon neutral technologies or practices are needed, or need to be developed for a sustainable future?

===Complexity===

24) To what degree does heterogeneity facilitate the adoption & spread of sustainable technologies or practices?

25) Are entropy and sustainability opposing or supporting forces? Under what conditions?

26) Can ideas from complexity be used to improve integrated design practices for new technology (and retrofit technology?)

27) What methods can be used and developed to quantify interactions between previously developed models of human, physical, and economic systems?

===Mitigation and Adaptation Continued===

28) How will we address projected phosphorus shortages? (2020-2050)

29) How are adaptation ideas distributed or shared? (Technology/Idea Transfer)

30) Can localization become an adaptive strategy?

31) What technologies or tools are still needed to evaluate environmental impacts?

===Proposals for Combination===

#2 and 21
#7 and 26 and 4
#12 and 18
#15 and 23 and 6
#8 and 9 and 16
#1 and 3
#1 and 27
#12 16 and 19

==Project Groups==
[http://www.santafe.edu/events/workshops/index.php/CSSS_2009_Santa_Fe-Modeling-Cluster Modeling Cluster (Q 13-14-30-27)]

Adam Wolf

2009-07-08T23:08:31Z

Adamwolf:

[[Image:LemonSpaceShip.jpg | 300px]]

Adam Wolf Santa Fe Institute – Global Sustainability Program 2009

As a scientist, I try to understand how the future cycles of water, energy, and nutrients on land might be different based on the interactions between the biosphere and the atmosphere. Because plants are individual agents making decisions on the allocation of scarce resources, their future behavior is strongly dependent on relative changes in the constraints they face, such as heat, moisture, nutrient and water supply, and competition with others.

The core topic of my dissertation is to develop a monitoring system of forest physiology and structure. Canopy architecture can be inferred from satellite imagery – even if no individual trees are seen – because the shadows cast by trees darkens the directional reflectance of a forest as seen from space. By using the parallax from two sequential measurements, we can estimate the stand density and crown size most consistent with the observations, using a Bayesian inversion technique called the Ensemble Kalman Filter. Particularly exciting is the use of allometry as a constraint to the model inversion: strong correlations in crown size, tree mass, and stand density mean that instead of finding many independent structural attributes using few observations, we are picking a single composite variable representing forests that range from young, short, stands of many trees, to old, tall stands of few large trees.

Another fun direction is using modern computer graphics algorithms to compute the light field of real forests using 3D depictions of trees using L-systems (a flavor of fractal geometry) and ray-tracing techniques, which exploit the graphics cards of the PlayStation3. I haven’t played video games for a decade, but it turns out there’s a lot that can be borrowed from gamers that improves the realism of ecological and physiological models.

This forest structure assimilation work was originally intended to infer boreal forest age and structure in Siberia, because the carbon budget of these forests is closely linked to their position within successional cycles. To get the allometry of Eurasian forests, I translated from the original Russian a compendium of destructive forest harvests used in their forest inventory program. I used the data on branch:trunk allometry and height:diameter allometry from this database to develop a fractal model of Stem Area Index for use in remote sensing, based on the work of Enquist Brown and West. While visiting Siberia developing this work, I got excited about using herbivores to bio-geoengineer climate, and this became a cover story for Stanford Magazine last fall:

ftp://dge.stanford.edu/pub/adamwolf/Wolf_PleistPark_StanMag08.pdf

The satellite inversion work would be particularly useful in the tropics, where there are so few inventory plots for monitoring changes. I just submitted a proposal to use airborne lidar to image the 3-D structure of forests in Hawaii, and use these observations to develop the allometry of stand architecture that could be used elsewhere in the tropics, using a new model of crown competition developed by Pacala et al. that will be extented to model crown shadows using the ray-tracing technique described above. We are hoping to supplement the airborne lidar with a groundbased system, so that the 3-D structure of branching can described; the trees modeled using L-systems can use the information on branching structure to describe trees with different topology and different recurrence relations, and we hope this will be useful in generalizing relationships between crown dimensions and tree mass.

My original dissertation proposal was to use stable isotopes of water vapor to interpret changes in the water cycle of Siberia, where the water cycle is most closely linked to biosphere-atmosphere feedbacks. That work was not funded, but I did develop some modeling tools for simulation of water isotopes in the atmosphere. We have started applying these models to an interesting global shift in the isotopic composition of kaolinite during the Cenozoic to ask: how did the evolution of stomata in plants lead to colonization of continental interiors, and change the water cycle on land?

I want to attend the Global Sustainability program because I want to reconnect with the impulses that led me to become a scientist in the first place: to strategize how we as a global society can make changes that alter the course we are on. Last year I started developing a mock curriculum on “Worldviews in Sustainability”, a growing flat file of every perspective I could find on sustainability, ranging from Ostrom’s World (sustainability of a shared resource is viewed as a collective action problem), to Lovins’ World (actually two views: sustainability would be economically viable if the true external costs of all resources were paid, and that sustainability can be reaped by major improvements in energy efficiency), to Holling’s World (sustainability is an ecological concept, tied to the resilience and stability of the underlying resource), and numerous others. The climate and energy problem is bounded on the one side by physical laws, and on the other hand by human action. I am hoping to engage with people who are engaged soberly but imaginitively with both these worlds, offer my thoughts, and hear what they have to say.

Adam Wolf

2009-07-08T23:07:46Z

Adamwolf:

[[Image:LemonSpaceShip.jpg | 200px]]

Adam Wolf Santa Fe Institute – Global Sustainability Program 2009

As a scientist, I try to understand how the future cycles of water, energy, and nutrients on land might be different based on the interactions between the biosphere and the atmosphere. Because plants are individual agents making decisions on the allocation of scarce resources, their future behavior is strongly dependent on relative changes in the constraints they face, such as heat, moisture, nutrient and water supply, and competition with others.

The core topic of my dissertation is to develop a monitoring system of forest physiology and structure. Canopy architecture can be inferred from satellite imagery – even if no individual trees are seen – because the shadows cast by trees darkens the directional reflectance of a forest as seen from space. By using the parallax from two sequential measurements, we can estimate the stand density and crown size most consistent with the observations, using a Bayesian inversion technique called the Ensemble Kalman Filter. Particularly exciting is the use of allometry as a constraint to the model inversion: strong correlations in crown size, tree mass, and stand density mean that instead of finding many independent structural attributes using few observations, we are picking a single composite variable representing forests that range from young, short, stands of many trees, to old, tall stands of few large trees.

Another fun direction is using modern computer graphics algorithms to compute the light field of real forests using 3D depictions of trees using L-systems (a flavor of fractal geometry) and ray-tracing techniques, which exploit the graphics cards of the PlayStation3. I haven’t played video games for a decade, but it turns out there’s a lot that can be borrowed from gamers that improves the realism of ecological and physiological models.

This forest structure assimilation work was originally intended to infer boreal forest age and structure in Siberia, because the carbon budget of these forests is closely linked to their position within successional cycles. To get the allometry of Eurasian forests, I translated from the original Russian a compendium of destructive forest harvests used in their forest inventory program. I used the data on branch:trunk allometry and height:diameter allometry from this database to develop a fractal model of Stem Area Index for use in remote sensing, based on the work of Enquist Brown and West. While visiting Siberia developing this work, I got excited about using herbivores to bio-geoengineer climate, and this became a cover story for Stanford Magazine last fall:

ftp://dge.stanford.edu/pub/adamwolf/Wolf_PleistPark_StanMag08.pdf

The satellite inversion work would be particularly useful in the tropics, where there are so few inventory plots for monitoring changes. I just submitted a proposal to use airborne lidar to image the 3-D structure of forests in Hawaii, and use these observations to develop the allometry of stand architecture that could be used elsewhere in the tropics, using a new model of crown competition developed by Pacala et al. that will be extented to model crown shadows using the ray-tracing technique described above. We are hoping to supplement the airborne lidar with a groundbased system, so that the 3-D structure of branching can described; the trees modeled using L-systems can use the information on branching structure to describe trees with different topology and different recurrence relations, and we hope this will be useful in generalizing relationships between crown dimensions and tree mass.

My original dissertation proposal was to use stable isotopes of water vapor to interpret changes in the water cycle of Siberia, where the water cycle is most closely linked to biosphere-atmosphere feedbacks. That work was not funded, but I did develop some modeling tools for simulation of water isotopes in the atmosphere. We have started applying these models to an interesting global shift in the isotopic composition of kaolinite during the Cenozoic to ask: how did the evolution of stomata in plants lead to colonization of continental interiors, and change the water cycle on land?

I want to attend the Global Sustainability program because I want to reconnect with the impulses that led me to become a scientist in the first place: to strategize how we as a global society can make changes that alter the course we are on. Last year I started developing a mock curriculum on “Worldviews in Sustainability”, a growing flat file of every perspective I could find on sustainability, ranging from Ostrom’s World (sustainability of a shared resource is viewed as a collective action problem), to Lovins’ World (actually two views: sustainability would be economically viable if the true external costs of all resources were paid, and that sustainability can be reaped by major improvements in energy efficiency), to Holling’s World (sustainability is an ecological concept, tied to the resilience and stability of the underlying resource), and numerous others. The climate and energy problem is bounded on the one side by physical laws, and on the other hand by human action. I am hoping to engage with people who are engaged soberly but imaginitively with both these worlds, offer my thoughts, and hear what they have to say.

Adam Wolf

2009-07-08T23:07:31Z

Adamwolf:

[[Image:LemonSpaceShip.jpg]]

Adam Wolf Santa Fe Institute – Global Sustainability Program 2009

As a scientist, I try to understand how the future cycles of water, energy, and nutrients on land might be different based on the interactions between the biosphere and the atmosphere. Because plants are individual agents making decisions on the allocation of scarce resources, their future behavior is strongly dependent on relative changes in the constraints they face, such as heat, moisture, nutrient and water supply, and competition with others.

The core topic of my dissertation is to develop a monitoring system of forest physiology and structure. Canopy architecture can be inferred from satellite imagery – even if no individual trees are seen – because the shadows cast by trees darkens the directional reflectance of a forest as seen from space. By using the parallax from two sequential measurements, we can estimate the stand density and crown size most consistent with the observations, using a Bayesian inversion technique called the Ensemble Kalman Filter. Particularly exciting is the use of allometry as a constraint to the model inversion: strong correlations in crown size, tree mass, and stand density mean that instead of finding many independent structural attributes using few observations, we are picking a single composite variable representing forests that range from young, short, stands of many trees, to old, tall stands of few large trees.

Another fun direction is using modern computer graphics algorithms to compute the light field of real forests using 3D depictions of trees using L-systems (a flavor of fractal geometry) and ray-tracing techniques, which exploit the graphics cards of the PlayStation3. I haven’t played video games for a decade, but it turns out there’s a lot that can be borrowed from gamers that improves the realism of ecological and physiological models.

This forest structure assimilation work was originally intended to infer boreal forest age and structure in Siberia, because the carbon budget of these forests is closely linked to their position within successional cycles. To get the allometry of Eurasian forests, I translated from the original Russian a compendium of destructive forest harvests used in their forest inventory program. I used the data on branch:trunk allometry and height:diameter allometry from this database to develop a fractal model of Stem Area Index for use in remote sensing, based on the work of Enquist Brown and West. While visiting Siberia developing this work, I got excited about using herbivores to bio-geoengineer climate, and this became a cover story for Stanford Magazine last fall:

ftp://dge.stanford.edu/pub/adamwolf/Wolf_PleistPark_StanMag08.pdf

The satellite inversion work would be particularly useful in the tropics, where there are so few inventory plots for monitoring changes. I just submitted a proposal to use airborne lidar to image the 3-D structure of forests in Hawaii, and use these observations to develop the allometry of stand architecture that could be used elsewhere in the tropics, using a new model of crown competition developed by Pacala et al. that will be extented to model crown shadows using the ray-tracing technique described above. We are hoping to supplement the airborne lidar with a groundbased system, so that the 3-D structure of branching can described; the trees modeled using L-systems can use the information on branching structure to describe trees with different topology and different recurrence relations, and we hope this will be useful in generalizing relationships between crown dimensions and tree mass.

My original dissertation proposal was to use stable isotopes of water vapor to interpret changes in the water cycle of Siberia, where the water cycle is most closely linked to biosphere-atmosphere feedbacks. That work was not funded, but I did develop some modeling tools for simulation of water isotopes in the atmosphere. We have started applying these models to an interesting global shift in the isotopic composition of kaolinite during the Cenozoic to ask: how did the evolution of stomata in plants lead to colonization of continental interiors, and change the water cycle on land?

I want to attend the Global Sustainability program because I want to reconnect with the impulses that led me to become a scientist in the first place: to strategize how we as a global society can make changes that alter the course we are on. Last year I started developing a mock curriculum on “Worldviews in Sustainability”, a growing flat file of every perspective I could find on sustainability, ranging from Ostrom’s World (sustainability of a shared resource is viewed as a collective action problem), to Lovins’ World (actually two views: sustainability would be economically viable if the true external costs of all resources were paid, and that sustainability can be reaped by major improvements in energy efficiency), to Holling’s World (sustainability is an ecological concept, tied to the resilience and stability of the underlying resource), and numerous others. The climate and energy problem is bounded on the one side by physical laws, and on the other hand by human action. I am hoping to engage with people who are engaged soberly but imaginitively with both these worlds, offer my thoughts, and hear what they have to say.

Adam Wolf

2009-07-08T23:06:56Z

Adamwolf:

Image:LemonSpaceShip.jpg

Adam Wolf Santa Fe Institute – Global Sustainability Program 2009

As a scientist, I try to understand how the future cycles of water, energy, and nutrients on land might be different based on the interactions between the biosphere and the atmosphere. Because plants are individual agents making decisions on the allocation of scarce resources, their future behavior is strongly dependent on relative changes in the constraints they face, such as heat, moisture, nutrient and water supply, and competition with others.

The core topic of my dissertation is to develop a monitoring system of forest physiology and structure. Canopy architecture can be inferred from satellite imagery – even if no individual trees are seen – because the shadows cast by trees darkens the directional reflectance of a forest as seen from space. By using the parallax from two sequential measurements, we can estimate the stand density and crown size most consistent with the observations, using a Bayesian inversion technique called the Ensemble Kalman Filter. Particularly exciting is the use of allometry as a constraint to the model inversion: strong correlations in crown size, tree mass, and stand density mean that instead of finding many independent structural attributes using few observations, we are picking a single composite variable representing forests that range from young, short, stands of many trees, to old, tall stands of few large trees.

Another fun direction is using modern computer graphics algorithms to compute the light field of real forests using 3D depictions of trees using L-systems (a flavor of fractal geometry) and ray-tracing techniques, which exploit the graphics cards of the PlayStation3. I haven’t played video games for a decade, but it turns out there’s a lot that can be borrowed from gamers that improves the realism of ecological and physiological models.

This forest structure assimilation work was originally intended to infer boreal forest age and structure in Siberia, because the carbon budget of these forests is closely linked to their position within successional cycles. To get the allometry of Eurasian forests, I translated from the original Russian a compendium of destructive forest harvests used in their forest inventory program. I used the data on branch:trunk allometry and height:diameter allometry from this database to develop a fractal model of Stem Area Index for use in remote sensing, based on the work of Enquist Brown and West. While visiting Siberia developing this work, I got excited about using herbivores to bio-geoengineer climate, and this became a cover story for Stanford Magazine last fall:

ftp://dge.stanford.edu/pub/adamwolf/Wolf_PleistPark_StanMag08.pdf

The satellite inversion work would be particularly useful in the tropics, where there are so few inventory plots for monitoring changes. I just submitted a proposal to use airborne lidar to image the 3-D structure of forests in Hawaii, and use these observations to develop the allometry of stand architecture that could be used elsewhere in the tropics, using a new model of crown competition developed by Pacala et al. that will be extented to model crown shadows using the ray-tracing technique described above. We are hoping to supplement the airborne lidar with a groundbased system, so that the 3-D structure of branching can described; the trees modeled using L-systems can use the information on branching structure to describe trees with different topology and different recurrence relations, and we hope this will be useful in generalizing relationships between crown dimensions and tree mass.

My original dissertation proposal was to use stable isotopes of water vapor to interpret changes in the water cycle of Siberia, where the water cycle is most closely linked to biosphere-atmosphere feedbacks. That work was not funded, but I did develop some modeling tools for simulation of water isotopes in the atmosphere. We have started applying these models to an interesting global shift in the isotopic composition of kaolinite during the Cenozoic to ask: how did the evolution of stomata in plants lead to colonization of continental interiors, and change the water cycle on land?

I want to attend the Global Sustainability program because I want to reconnect with the impulses that led me to become a scientist in the first place: to strategize how we as a global society can make changes that alter the course we are on. Last year I started developing a mock curriculum on “Worldviews in Sustainability”, a growing flat file of every perspective I could find on sustainability, ranging from Ostrom’s World (sustainability of a shared resource is viewed as a collective action problem), to Lovins’ World (actually two views: sustainability would be economically viable if the true external costs of all resources were paid, and that sustainability can be reaped by major improvements in energy efficiency), to Holling’s World (sustainability is an ecological concept, tied to the resilience and stability of the underlying resource), and numerous others. The climate and energy problem is bounded on the one side by physical laws, and on the other hand by human action. I am hoping to engage with people who are engaged soberly but imaginitively with both these worlds, offer my thoughts, and hear what they have to say.

File:LemonSpaceShip.jpg

2009-07-08T23:04:57Z

Adamwolf:

Adam Wolf

2009-07-08T23:02:37Z

Adamwolf:

Adam Wolf Santa Fe Institute – Global Sustainability Program 2009

As a scientist, I try to understand how the future cycles of water, energy, and nutrients on land might be different based on the interactions between the biosphere and the atmosphere. Because plants are individual agents making decisions on the allocation of scarce resources, their future behavior is strongly dependent on relative changes in the constraints they face, such as heat, moisture, nutrient and water supply, and competition with others.

The core topic of my dissertation is to develop a monitoring system of forest physiology and structure. Canopy architecture can be inferred from satellite imagery – even if no individual trees are seen – because the shadows cast by trees darkens the directional reflectance of a forest as seen from space. By using the parallax from two sequential measurements, we can estimate the stand density and crown size most consistent with the observations, using a Bayesian inversion technique called the Ensemble Kalman Filter. Particularly exciting is the use of allometry as a constraint to the model inversion: strong correlations in crown size, tree mass, and stand density mean that instead of finding many independent structural attributes using few observations, we are picking a single composite variable representing forests that range from young, short, stands of many trees, to old, tall stands of few large trees.

Another fun direction is using modern computer graphics algorithms to compute the light field of real forests using 3D depictions of trees using L-systems (a flavor of fractal geometry) and ray-tracing techniques, which exploit the graphics cards of the PlayStation3. I haven’t played video games for a decade, but it turns out there’s a lot that can be borrowed from gamers that improves the realism of ecological and physiological models.

This forest structure assimilation work was originally intended to infer boreal forest age and structure in Siberia, because the carbon budget of these forests is closely linked to their position within successional cycles. To get the allometry of Eurasian forests, I translated from the original Russian a compendium of destructive forest harvests used in their forest inventory program. I used the data on branch:trunk allometry and height:diameter allometry from this database to develop a fractal model of Stem Area Index for use in remote sensing, based on the work of Enquist Brown and West. While visiting Siberia developing this work, I got excited about using herbivores to bio-geoengineer climate, and this became a cover story for Stanford Magazine last fall:

ftp://dge.stanford.edu/pub/adamwolf/Wolf_PleistPark_StanMag08.pdf

The satellite inversion work would be particularly useful in the tropics, where there are so few inventory plots for monitoring changes. I just submitted a proposal to use airborne lidar to image the 3-D structure of forests in Hawaii, and use these observations to develop the allometry of stand architecture that could be used elsewhere in the tropics, using a new model of crown competition developed by Pacala et al. that will be extented to model crown shadows using the ray-tracing technique described above. We are hoping to supplement the airborne lidar with a groundbased system, so that the 3-D structure of branching can described; the trees modeled using L-systems can use the information on branching structure to describe trees with different topology and different recurrence relations, and we hope this will be useful in generalizing relationships between crown dimensions and tree mass.

My original dissertation proposal was to use stable isotopes of water vapor to interpret changes in the water cycle of Siberia, where the water cycle is most closely linked to biosphere-atmosphere feedbacks. That work was not funded, but I did develop some modeling tools for simulation of water isotopes in the atmosphere. We have started applying these models to an interesting global shift in the isotopic composition of kaolinite during the Cenozoic to ask: how did the evolution of stomata in plants lead to colonization of continental interiors, and change the water cycle on land?

I want to attend the Global Sustainability program because I want to reconnect with the impulses that led me to become a scientist in the first place: to strategize how we as a global society can make changes that alter the course we are on. Last year I started developing a mock curriculum on “Worldviews in Sustainability”, a growing flat file of every perspective I could find on sustainability, ranging from Ostrom’s World (sustainability of a shared resource is viewed as a collective action problem), to Lovins’ World (actually two views: sustainability would be economically viable if the true external costs of all resources were paid, and that sustainability can be reaped by major improvements in energy efficiency), to Holling’s World (sustainability is an ecological concept, tied to the resilience and stability of the underlying resource), and numerous others. The climate and energy problem is bounded on the one side by physical laws, and on the other hand by human action. I am hoping to engage with people who are engaged soberly but imaginitively with both these worlds, offer my thoughts, and hear what they have to say.

Adam Wolf

2009-07-08T23:02:22Z

Adamwolf:

Adam Wolf

2009-07-08T23:02:13Z

Adamwolf:

Adam Wolf

2009-07-08T23:01:56Z

Adamwolf:

Adam Wolf Santa Fe Institute – Global Sustainability Program 2009

\tAs a scientist, I try to understand how the future cycles of water, energy, and nutrients on land might be different based on the interactions between the biosphere and the atmosphere. Because plants are individual agents making decisions on the allocation of scarce resources, their future behavior is strongly dependent on relative changes in the constraints they face, such as heat, moisture, nutrient and water supply, and competition with others.

The core topic of my dissertation is to develop a monitoring system of forest physiology and structure. Canopy architecture can be inferred from satellite imagery – even if no individual trees are seen – because the shadows cast by trees darkens the directional reflectance of a forest as seen from space. By using the parallax from two sequential measurements, we can estimate the stand density and crown size most consistent with the observations, using a Bayesian inversion technique called the Ensemble Kalman Filter. Particularly exciting is the use of allometry as a constraint to the model inversion: strong correlations in crown size, tree mass, and stand density mean that instead of finding many independent structural attributes using few observations, we are picking a single composite variable representing forests that range from young, short, stands of many trees, to old, tall stands of few large trees.

Another fun direction is using modern computer graphics algorithms to compute the light field of real forests using 3D depictions of trees using L-systems (a flavor of fractal geometry) and ray-tracing techniques, which exploit the graphics cards of the PlayStation3. I haven’t played video games for a decade, but it turns out there’s a lot that can be borrowed from gamers that improves the realism of ecological and physiological models.

This forest structure assimilation work was originally intended to infer boreal forest age and structure in Siberia, because the carbon budget of these forests is closely linked to their position within successional cycles. To get the allometry of Eurasian forests, I translated from the original Russian a compendium of destructive forest harvests used in their forest inventory program. I used the data on branch:trunk allometry and height:diameter allometry from this database to develop a fractal model of Stem Area Index for use in remote sensing, based on the work of Enquist Brown and West. While visiting Siberia developing this work, I got excited about using herbivores to bio-geoengineer climate, and this became a cover story for Stanford Magazine last fall:

ftp://dge.stanford.edu/pub/adamwolf/Wolf_PleistPark_StanMag08.pdf

The satellite inversion work would be particularly useful in the tropics, where there are so few inventory plots for monitoring changes. I just submitted a proposal to use airborne lidar to image the 3-D structure of forests in Hawaii, and use these observations to develop the allometry of stand architecture that could be used elsewhere in the tropics, using a new model of crown competition developed by Pacala et al. that will be extented to model crown shadows using the ray-tracing technique described above. We are hoping to supplement the airborne lidar with a groundbased system, so that the 3-D structure of branching can described; the trees modeled using L-systems can use the information on branching structure to describe trees with different topology and different recurrence relations, and we hope this will be useful in generalizing relationships between crown dimensions and tree mass.

My original dissertation proposal was to use stable isotopes of water vapor to interpret changes in the water cycle of Siberia, where the water cycle is most closely linked to biosphere-atmosphere feedbacks. That work was not funded, but I did develop some modeling tools for simulation of water isotopes in the atmosphere. We have started applying these models to an interesting global shift in the isotopic composition of kaolinite during the Cenozoic to ask: how did the evolution of stomata in plants lead to colonization of continental interiors, and change the water cycle on land?

I want to attend the Global Sustainability program because I want to reconnect with the impulses that led me to become a scientist in the first place: to strategize how we as a global society can make changes that alter the course we are on. Last year I started developing a mock curriculum on “Worldviews in Sustainability”, a growing flat file of every perspective I could find on sustainability, ranging from Ostrom’s World (sustainability of a shared resource is viewed as a collective action problem), to Lovins’ World (actually two views: sustainability would be economically viable if the true external costs of all resources were paid, and that sustainability can be reaped by major improvements in energy efficiency), to Holling’s World (sustainability is an ecological concept, tied to the resilience and stability of the underlying resource), and numerous others. The climate and energy problem is bounded on the one side by physical laws, and on the other hand by human action. I am hoping to engage with people who are engaged soberly but imaginitively with both these worlds, offer my thoughts, and hear what they have to say.

Adam Wolf

2009-07-08T23:01:40Z

Adamwolf:

Adam Wolf

2009-07-08T23:01:09Z

Adamwolf:

Adam Wolf Santa Fe Institute – Global Sustainability Program 2009

As a scientist, I try to understand how the future cycles of water, energy, and nutrients on land might be different based on the interactions between the biosphere and the atmosphere. Because plants are individual agents making decisions on the allocation of scarce resources, their future behavior is strongly dependent on relative changes in the constraints they face, such as heat, moisture, nutrient and water supply, and competition with others.

The core topic of my dissertation is to develop a monitoring system of forest physiology and structure. Canopy architecture can be inferred from satellite imagery – even if no individual trees are seen – because the shadows cast by trees darkens the directional reflectance of a forest as seen from space. By using the parallax from two sequential measurements, we can estimate the stand density and crown size most consistent with the observations, using a Bayesian inversion technique called the Ensemble Kalman Filter. Particularly exciting is the use of allometry as a constraint to the model inversion: strong correlations in crown size, tree mass, and stand density mean that instead of finding many independent structural attributes using few observations, we are picking a single composite variable representing forests that range from young, short, stands of many trees, to old, tall stands of few large trees.

Another fun direction is using modern computer graphics algorithms to compute the light field of real forests using 3D depictions of trees using L-systems (a flavor of fractal geometry) and ray-tracing techniques, which exploit the graphics cards of the PlayStation3. I haven’t played video games for a decade, but it turns out there’s a lot that can be borrowed from gamers that improves the realism of ecological and physiological models.

This forest structure assimilation work was originally intended to infer boreal forest age and structure in Siberia, because the carbon budget of these forests is closely linked to their position within successional cycles. To get the allometry of Eurasian forests, I translated from the original Russian a compendium of destructive forest harvests used in their forest inventory program. I used the data on branch:trunk allometry and height:diameter allometry from this database to develop a fractal model of Stem Area Index for use in remote sensing, based on the work of Enquist Brown and West. While visiting Siberia developing this work, I got excited about using herbivores to bio-geoengineer climate, and this became a cover story for Stanford Magazine last fall: ftp://dge.stanford.edu/pub/adamwolf/Wolf_PleistPark_StanMag08.pdf

The satellite inversion work would be particularly useful in the tropics, where there are so few inventory plots for monitoring changes. I just submitted a proposal to use airborne lidar to image the 3-D structure of forests in Hawaii, and use these observations to develop the allometry of stand architecture that could be used elsewhere in the tropics, using a new model of crown competition developed by Pacala et al. that will be extented to model crown shadows using the ray-tracing technique described above. We are hoping to supplement the airborne lidar with a groundbased system, so that the 3-D structure of branching can described; the trees modeled using L-systems can use the information on branching structure to describe trees with different topology and different recurrence relations, and we hope this will be useful in generalizing relationships between crown dimensions and tree mass.

My original dissertation proposal was to use stable isotopes of water vapor to interpret changes in the water cycle of Siberia, where the water cycle is most closely linked to biosphere-atmosphere feedbacks. That work was not funded, but I did develop some modeling tools for simulation of water isotopes in the atmosphere. We have started applying these models to an interesting global shift in the isotopic composition of kaolinite during the Cenozoic to ask: how did the evolution of stomata in plants lead to colonization of continental interiors, and change the water cycle on land?

I want to attend the Global Sustainability program because I want to reconnect with the impulses that led me to become a scientist in the first place: to strategize how we as a global society can make changes that alter the course we are on. Last year I started developing a mock curriculum on “Worldviews in Sustainability”, a growing flat file of every perspective I could find on sustainability, ranging from Ostrom’s World (sustainability of a shared resource is viewed as a collective action problem), to Lovins’ World (actually two views: sustainability would be economically viable if the true external costs of all resources were paid, and that sustainability can be reaped by major improvements in energy efficiency), to Holling’s World (sustainability is an ecological concept, tied to the resilience and stability of the underlying resource), and numerous others. The climate and energy problem is bounded on the one side by physical laws, and on the other hand by human action. I am hoping to engage with people who are engaged soberly but imaginitively with both these worlds, offer my thoughts, and hear what they have to say.

Adam Wolf

2009-04-28T19:51:15Z

Adamwolf: /* Adam Wolf testpage */

#acl @ME@:read,write,delete,revert

=== Adam Wolf testpage ===

Adam Wolf

2009-04-28T19:49:43Z

Adamwolf: New page: #acl @ME@:read,write,delete,revert == Adam Wolf testpage ==

#acl @ME@:read,write,delete,revert

== Adam Wolf testpage ==