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Carbon Cycle Science
The Carbon Cycle Science & Technology Group aims to increase understanding of the impacts of global change on managed and unmanaged ecosystems and improve knowledge of possible global change mitigation approaches. The group has four main focus areas.
Climate Change Experimental Facility Design and Management
The CCS&T group is an internationally recognized leader in the development of Free Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) research facilities. We are interested in the design and management of manipulative experiments that examine the effects of carbon dioxide, ozone, other atmospheric pollutants, temperature and precipitation on natural and managed ecosystems.
Plant Physiology and High Throughput Biochemical Phenotyping
At FACE facilities we have studied the mechanisms that underlie the response of photosynthesis and central metabolism to global change. We are now using liquid handling robots to develop high throughput assays for biochemical phenotypes that will help to identify desirable traits in biofuel feedstocks, and crops with increased productivity for our future farms.
Above ground, knowledge of the response of ecosystems to global change is advanced but below ground many fundamental questions remain unanswered because of the technical difficulties of conducting sub-surface measurements. We have developed a method for measuring total soil carbon using a non invasive technique and are now using that system in full scale field studies.
One possible approach to mitigate global climate change is to capture and compress the carbon dioxide emissions of large point sources, such as coal fired power plants or biofuel plants, and inject it into natural underground reservoirs. However, there is critical uncertainty about the long-term integrity of these reservoirs. Using the National Synchrotron Light Source our scientists are investigating the geochemistry that will impact reservoir performance.