Climate and Ecosystems
The Climate and Ecosystems group studies climate-ecosystem interactions and the impacts of those interactions on other systems.
These can be broken into 3 parts:
- The impacts of climate changes on ecosystems
- The influence of ecosystem changes on climate
- Interactions between human activities, ecosystems, and climate
An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms (biotic factors) in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical (abiotic) factors of the environment. (Wikipedia 2009)
Research Spotlight
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Dynamic vegetation and Carbon Cycle Model
We have developed a dynamic land model (LM3V)
able to simulate ecosystem dynamics and exchanges of water, energy and
CO2 between land and atmosphere. LM3V is
specifically designed to address the consequences of
land-use/land-management changes
including cropland and pasture dynamics, shifting cultivation, logging,
fire, and resulting
patterns of secondary regrowth. Our process-based model suggests a smaller net
deforestation source
than earlier bookkeeping models because it accounts for decelerated net
conversion of
primary forest to agriculture and for stronger secondary vegetation
regrowth in tropical
regions. The overall uncertainty is likely to be higher than the range
reported here
because of uncertainty in the biomass recovery under changing ambient
conditions,
including atmospheric CO2 concentration, nutrients availability and
climate. |
