[1] We developed a modeling system which combines a mesoscale meteorological model, the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, with a diagnostic biospheric model, the Vegetation Photosynthesis and Respiration (VPRM). The WRF-VPRM modeling system was designed to realistically simulate high-resolution atmospheric CO 2 concentration fields. In the system, WRF takes into account anthropogenic and biospheric CO 2 fluxes and realistic initial and boundary conditions for CO 2 from a global model. The system uses several ''tagged'' tracers for CO 2 fields from different sources. VPRM uses meteorological fields from WRF and high-resolution satellite indices to simulate biospheric CO 2 fluxes with realistic spatiotemporal patterns. Here we present results from the application of the model for interpretation of measurements made within the CarboEurope Regional Experiment Strategy (CERES). Simulated fields of meteorological variables and CO 2 were compared against ground-based and airborne observations. In particular, the characterization by aircraft measurements turned out to be crucial for the model evaluation. The comparison revealed that the model is able to capture the main observed features in the CO 2 distribution reasonably well. The simulations showed that daytime CO 2 measurements made at coastal stations can be strongly affected by land breeze and subsequent sea breeze transport of CO 2 respired from the vegetation during the previous night, which can lead to wrong estimates when such data are used in inverse studies. The results also show that WRF-VPRM is an effective modeling tool for addressing the near-field variability of CO 2 fluxes and concentrations for observing stations around the globe.Citation: Ahmadov, R., C. Gerbig, R. Kretschmer, S. Koerner, B. Neininger, A. J. Dolman, and C. Sarrat (2007), Mesoscale covariance of transport and CO 2 fluxes: Evidence from observations and simulations using the WRF-VPRM coupled atmospherebiosphere model,

We investigated the potential for using long-archived wood samples extracted from archaeological contexts at four Mississippian Period (AD 900-1600) settlements in eastern Tennessee for tree-ring dating purposes. Sixteen wood samples recovered from prehistoric sites were analyzed to: (1) crossmatch samples from each site with the intent of determining the relative chronological order of sites, (2) establish a floating prehistoric tree-ring chronology for eastern Tennessee, (3) determine the applicability of dendrochronology in prehistoric archaeology in eastern Tennessee, and (4) establish a strategy for future research in the region. We succeeded in crossmatching only three of the 16 tree-ring sequences against each other, representing two sites relatively close to each other: Upper Hampton and Watts Bar Reservoir. The average interseries correlation of these three samples was 0.74 with an average mean sensitivity of 0.26, and they were used to create a 131-year-long floating chronology. The remaining samples contained too few rings (15 to 43) for conclusive crossmatching. Our results demonstrate that dendrochronological techniques may be applied to the practice of prehistoric archaeology in the Southeastern U.S., but highlight the challenges that face dendroarchaeologists: (1) poor wood preservation at prehistoric sites, (2) too few rings in many samples, (3) the lack of a reference chronology long enough for absolute dating, and (4) the lack of a standard on-site sampling protocol to ensure the fragile wood samples remain intact.

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