3 research outputs found
Global maps of soil temperature.
Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1-km <sup>2</sup> resolution for 0-5 and 5-15 cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e. offset) between in situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1-km <sup>2</sup> pixels (summarized from 8519 unique temperature sensors) across all the world's major terrestrial biomes, and coarse-grained air temperature estimates from ERA5-Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean = 3.0 ± 2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6 ± 2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (-0.7 ± 2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome-specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near-surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil-related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step forward for any application in ecology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, we highlight the need to fill remaining geographic gaps by collecting more in situ measurements of microclimate conditions to further enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of global soil temperature products for ecological applications
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Lack of Effect of Steroids on Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone (TRH) Mediated Thyrotropin (TSH) Release in Man
Plasma thyrotropin levels were measured after the acute i.v. administration of 400 µg of synthetic thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) in 6 patients with Addison’s disease, 2 patients with thrombo-cytopenia, and 3 postmenopausal women before and after treatment with cortisone acetate (37.5 mg/day), prednisone (150 mg/day) and diethylstilbesterol (15.0 mg), respectively. All had normal thyroid function with the exception of one hypothyroid postmenopausal woman. There was no significant difference between the responses to TRH before and after steroids, nor between either response and the TSH release found in a group of 20 healthy male volunteers, except for the hypothyroid woman who had a supranormal response and the thrombocytopenic patients whose responses were blunted. In addition, 5 normal volunteers received 100 µg TRH i.v. 1 h after the acute i.v. administration of 30.0 mg methyl prednisolone, 3.0 mg ethinyl estradiol, or saline. There was no significant change in the basal TSH concentration during the 1-hour interval prior to TRH treatment, and the TSH response to TRH after the administration of either steroid was not significantly different from that after the saline control. It is concluded that neither acute pharmacologic treatment nor chronic replacement therapy with either estrogens or corticosteroids affects the TSH response of the pituitary to TRH in man. However, chronic pharmacologic treatment with glucocortico-steroids may have a suppressive effect