TY - JOUR A1 - Francke, Till A1 - Heistermann, Maik A1 - Köhli, Markus A1 - Budach, Christian A1 - Schrön, Martin A1 - Oswald, Sascha T1 - Assessing the feasibility of a directional cosmic-ray neutron sensing sensor for estimating soil moisture JF - Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems N2 - Cosmic-ray neutron sensing (CRNS) is a non-invasive tool for measuring hydrogen pools such as soil moisture, snow or vegetation. The intrinsic integration over a radial hectare-scale footprint is a clear advantage for averaging out small-scale heterogeneity, but on the other hand the data may become hard to interpret in complex terrain with patchy land use. This study presents a directional shielding approach to prevent neutrons from certain angles from being counted while counting neutrons entering the detector from other angles and explores its potential to gain a sharper horizontal view on the surrounding soil moisture distribution. Using the Monte Carlo code URANOS (Ultra Rapid Neutron-Only Simulation), we modelled the effect of additional polyethylene shields on the horizontal field of view and assessed its impact on the epithermal count rate, propagated uncertainties and aggregation time. The results demonstrate that directional CRNS measurements are strongly dominated by isotropic neutron transport, which dilutes the signal of the targeted direction especially from the far field. For typical count rates of customary CRNS stations, directional shielding of half-spaces could not lead to acceptable precision at a daily time resolution. However, the mere statistical distinction of two rates should be feasible. KW - water-balance KW - quantification KW - calibration KW - validation Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-11-75-2022 SN - 2193-0864 SN - 2193-0856 VL - 11 SP - 75 EP - 92 PB - Copernicus Publ. CY - Göttingen ER - TY - GEN A1 - Francke, Till A1 - Heistermann, Maik A1 - Köhli, Markus A1 - Budach, Christian A1 - Schrön, Martin A1 - Oswald, Sascha T1 - Assessing the feasibility of a directional cosmic-ray neutron sensing sensor for estimating soil moisture T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Cosmic-ray neutron sensing (CRNS) is a non-invasive tool for measuring hydrogen pools such as soil moisture, snow or vegetation. The intrinsic integration over a radial hectare-scale footprint is a clear advantage for averaging out small-scale heterogeneity, but on the other hand the data may become hard to interpret in complex terrain with patchy land use. This study presents a directional shielding approach to prevent neutrons from certain angles from being counted while counting neutrons entering the detector from other angles and explores its potential to gain a sharper horizontal view on the surrounding soil moisture distribution. Using the Monte Carlo code URANOS (Ultra Rapid Neutron-Only Simulation), we modelled the effect of additional polyethylene shields on the horizontal field of view and assessed its impact on the epithermal count rate, propagated uncertainties and aggregation time. The results demonstrate that directional CRNS measurements are strongly dominated by isotropic neutron transport, which dilutes the signal of the targeted direction especially from the far field. For typical count rates of customary CRNS stations, directional shielding of half-spaces could not lead to acceptable precision at a daily time resolution. However, the mere statistical distinction of two rates should be feasible. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1228 KW - water-balance KW - quantification KW - calibration KW - validation Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-544229 SN - 1866-8372 SP - 75 EP - 92 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wagener, Thorsten A1 - Reinecke, Robert A1 - Pianosi, Francesca T1 - On the evaluation of climate change impact models JF - Wiley interdisciplinary reviews : Climate change N2 - In-depth understanding of the potential implications of climate change is required to guide decision- and policy-makers when developing adaptation strategies and designing infrastructure suitable for future conditions. Impact models that translate potential future climate conditions into variables of interest are needed to create the causal connection between a changing climate and its impact for different sectors. Recent surveys suggest that the primary strategy for validating such models (and hence for justifying their use) heavily relies on assessing the accuracy of model simulations by comparing them against historical observations. We argue that such a comparison is necessary and valuable, but not sufficient to achieve a comprehensive evaluation of climate change impact models. We believe that a complementary, largely observation-independent, step of model evaluation is needed to ensure more transparency of model behavior and greater robustness of scenario-based analyses. This step should address the following four questions: (1) Do modeled dominant process controls match our system perception? (2) Is my model's sensitivity to changing forcing as expected? (3) Do modeled decision levers show adequate influence? (4) Can we attribute uncertainty sources throughout the projection horizon? We believe that global sensitivity analysis, with its ability to investigate a model's response to joint variations of multiple inputs in a structured way, offers a coherent approach to address all four questions comprehensively. Such additional model evaluation would strengthen stakeholder confidence in model projections and, therefore, into the adaptation strategies derived with the help of impact models. This article is categorized under: Climate Models and Modeling > Knowledge Generation with Models Assessing Impacts of Climate Change > Evaluating Future Impacts of Climate Change KW - adaptation KW - sensitivity analysis KW - uncertainty KW - validation Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.772 SN - 1757-7780 SN - 1757-7799 VL - 13 IS - 3 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER -