Radiocarbon in roadside plants revealed a decline in auto emissions during COVID lockdown and a 2021 rebound. Could this improve emission estimates in countries without CO2 monitoring infrastructure?
E. Davidson
Eric Davidson is Past President of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and director and professor of the Appalachian Laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. Previously, he served as president and executive director at the Woods Hole Research Center, where he worked as a scientist since 1991.
His research interests are in biogeochemistry and include studying the exchange of plant nutrients from the land to streams and groundwater and the exchange of greenhouse gases between the soil and the atmosphere. Eric has held postdoctoral positions in soil microbiology and biogeochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and the NASA Ames Research Center. He is a member of the Ecological Society of America and the Soil Science Society of America, as well as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Eric previously served as the president of the Biogeosciences section of AGU. He holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Oberlin College and a Ph.D. in forestry from North Carolina State University.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Good Trouble in Committees
Assigned to another committee? “Ugh,” you say. Think again, and read this article to see how that committee could be an engine of diversity for your organization and for the geosciences.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Bottom-up Meets Top-down Estimates of Wetland Methane Emissions
An innovative integration of models and satellite observations indicates weak temperature sensitivity of CH4 emissions from tropical wetlands, but temperature sensitivity is high at higher latitudes.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Steady but Slow Progress on the Long Road Towards Gender Parity
The historic disproportionate attrition of women among geoscience faculty is decreasing, but how long will it take to reach gender parity if current trends of progress continue?
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Permanence of Nature-Based Climate Solutions at Risk
Conserving native ecosystems helps sequester carbon and mitigate climate change, but new statistical modeling questions the permanence of California’s carbon-rich forests with climate change.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
What’s the Beef About Methane?
Progress has been made to reduce methane emission intensity from livestock (the amount of methane per unit of protein), but where are the greatest opportunities to reduce this methane source further?
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Deep Decarbonization? Yes We Can!
Modeling the U.S. energy system demonstrates several pathways to net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050. The pathway with the lowest cost, 0.2–1.2% of GDP, relies on >80% contribution of renewables.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
High Climatic Response of High-Latitude Forests
The seasonal amplitude of atmospheric CO2 is increasing, partly due to boreal forest responses to warming. Photosynthesis and expansion of boreal forests are shown here to be temperature-limited.
Posted inAGU News
Graumlich to Be AGU President-Elect/AGU Leadership Transitions
As new AGU leaders assume their governance roles in 2021, about half of the organization’s current officers will continue to serve and provide leadership continuity.
Posted inAGU News
2020 AGU Election Statistics
AGU’s Leadership Development/Governance Committee recaps the timing, participation, and other details of the organization’s recently completed 2020 leadership election.