Greetings AmeriFlux from the upper Sonoran Desert region in southeastern Arizona!

I thought you’d find the following reads intriguing. Both are lead-authored by Matt Roby, a Ph.D. student, at the University of Arizona’s School of Natural Resources and Environment.  Matt’s been busy working on his dissertation on climate change impacts on ecosystem carbon and water cycling in dryland regions with a minor in science communication.  In the first piece, published by Terrain.org, Matt elegantly describes his research and his career path along with great pictures and beautiful prose:

In the second article, just out in JGR-Biogeosciences, he presents new insights into how vapor pressure deficit is an important regulator of ecosystem carbon fluxes even in dry, semiarid systems that are strongly controlled by soil moisture.