The ExCO has now a new website where you can find details of the project, latest news and documents. The webpage is being develop and we hope that soon this page will be an important source of resources for Exeter students and the public in general.
To find out more about the ExCO webpage and the program, please visit:
https://sites.google.com/site/exetercarbonobservatory/
Welcome to the University of Exeter Carbon Observatory blog! This is our gateway for exchange of ideas and opinions on the role of natural ecosystems in mitigating climate change impacts. See our website for more information on the project. https://sites.google.com/site/exetercarbonobservatory/
Friday, 15 July 2011
Friday, 8 July 2011
Mitigation Potential of UK Forests
I am currently a week into my data collection in Stoke Woods. The aim of my project is to calculate the above and below-ground biomass of three mixed broadleaf stands varying in ages (1862, 1916 and 1979).
The data collection involves different techniques to estimate the 4 main sub components (above-ground tree biomass, litter layer, coarse woody debris and soil organic carbon) in order to estimate the total biomass for each stand.
Three plots (25m x 25m) have been set up in each stand using a compass and type measure. Each corner has been marked with a pole and attached with barrier type to easily distinguish between what trees are in and out of the plot.
Once the plots were set up, I began measuring the Diameter at Breast Height (DBH) for trees equal and greater than 10cm, marking each tree with a tag number. However due to the dominance of younger trees, I have also measured the DBH between 5-10cm in each plot to allow for further comparison of age and species. The 4 dominant species within each plot are Beech, Sycamore, Holly and Ash.
The next sub component to measure was the coarse woody debris (CWD). All fallen and standing coarse woody debris equal or greater than 5cm diameter within the plot boundaries were measured and classified into decomposition classes. For fallen CWD, the length and diameters at both ends were measured.
Next week, I will begin to measure the litter layer (0.5m x 0.5m) and take soil samples (0-10cm, 10-20cm, 20-30cm). Once I have collected this data, I will be able to begin estimating the biomass for each subcomponent and add these together to calculate the total biomass for each stand.
Sunday, 3 July 2011
Stoke Woods: The first ExCO field site in Exeter
Last week the sun came back to welcome the implementation of the first ExCO field site!
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| Figure2. First evaluation of the site by Luiz and Iain. |
Activities for setting up the site's carbon monitoring scheme have started in Stoke Woods. The ExCO is supported by University of Exeter's Annual Fund and is led by Dr Luiz Aragao and Dr Iain Hartley.
Our aim is to involve students from all levels and society in research carried out in the site.
As a long-term initiative we expect to be able to use it as a catalyst of information on the role of forests for mitigating global warming.
Current Activities
To help quantifying the role of UK forest in assimilating atmospheric CO2, University of Exeter Master's student David Crookes is using the site to carry out his research. David will be surveying trees in mixed broadleaf stands with different ages to evaluate their contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide sequestration in Stoke Woods.
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| Figure 3. David using his GPS to locate the suitable sites. |
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| Figure 4. David setting up one of the monitoring field plots |
The site is a wonderful woods. The area is plenty of ancient oak trees and mixed broadleaf stands. Forestry Commission's plans for the site is to allow the native forest to regrowth. During the transition between managed to native woods, native species will grow and will tell us the current capacity of native regeneration to sequester CO2 from the atmosphere.
Other two Exeter students will be also using this site for their dissertation. We will keep you posted on the progress of their work.
Figure 5. Stoke Woods Ancient Oak tree
Next Steps
We will be out there throughout the summer and are expecting great participation of Exeter students, volunteers and the society in general to understand and protect this spectacular natural resource that Woodlands are able to offer.
For further contact and information please follow the link below.
http://geography.exeter.ac.uk/staff/index.php?web_id=Luiz_Aragao
For further contact and information please follow the link below.
http://geography.exeter.ac.uk/staff/index.php?web_id=Luiz_Aragao
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Two fully funded PhD opportunities on Carbon Cycle at the University of Exeter
1. Modelling and quantifying net carbon emissions from forest fires in Amazonia Ref: 749
About the award
The University of Exeter is investing £230 million in science, engineering and medicine, building on existing areas of excellence. The interdisciplinary approach of the University’s Science Strategy is bringing staff together from across academic disciplines to tackle some of the big issues of our time. One of the five key themes of activity under the Science Strategy is Climate Change and Sustainable Futures. This theme underpins our growing strategic partnership with the Exeter-based Met Office. This partnership facilitates joint research between our two organisations to advance climate science together.
Under the leadership of Professor Peter Cox, Climate Change and Sustainable Futures consists of a vibrant community of over 100 academic staff who work in areas as diverse as physical sciences, environmental economics, health, policy and regulation and behavioural change. For further information on our work, please visit the Climate Change and Sustainable Futures web pages.
We are inviting applications for this PhD studentship to commence October 2011. The studentship will cover tuition fees (UK/EU/International) plus an annual stipend of £13,590pa for three years. This project is one of a number that are in competition for funding. Studentships will be awarded on the basis of merit.
Supervisors:
Dr Luiz Aragão, Geography
Professor Pierre Friedlingstein, Mathematics and Computer Science
Emissions from land use change and CO2 uptake by the terrestrial biosphere are the two most uncertain components of the global carbon budget (Houghton, 2007, Le Quere et al. 2010). This is due in part by our limited understanding of these two processes in tropical forest ecosystems. A key missing component in this equation is the role of forest fires (Le Quere et al 2010). Fires have been increasing in frequency during the last decade in several parts of the Amazon basin (Aragão and Shimabukuro, 2010). However, the magnitude of emissions from fires affecting standing forests and its influence on the recovery of these ecosystems is still highly uncertain.
This project aims to develop a consistent platform for calculating net emissions from tropical forest fires, focus on the case study of Amazonia. The work will involve the evaluation of Jules-ED-Spitfire model over the Amazon, and the development of comprehensive land use change and forest fire emission component in order to reduce uncertainties in the overall Net Biome Productivity. Specifically, the objectives of this PhD are: (1) Quantifying fire affected forests in the Amazon using remote sensing data; (2) Implementing the modelling framework for quantifying long term emissions and recover of affected forests; (3) Produce long term (past and future) net biome productivity estimates including fires.
The outputs of this work should ultimately improve our understanding on the magnitude of land use and cover change sources and terrestrial biosphere sinks for reducing uncertainties in the overall global carbon budget.
References
Aragão, LEOC; Shimabukuro, YE. 2010. The Incidence of Fire in Amazonian Forests with Implications for REDD.Science, vol. 328 no. 5983 pp. 1275-1278 . DOI: 10.1126/science.1186925
Houghton R.A. 2007. Balancing the Global Carbon Budget. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences Vol. 35: 313-347.
Le Quéré, C., M. R. Raupach, J. G. Canadell, G Marland, L. Bopp, P. Ciais, T. J. Conway, S. C. Doney, R. Feely, P. Foster, P. Friedlingstein, K. Gurney, R. A. Houghton, J. I. House, C. Huntingford, P.E. Levy, M. R. Lomas, J. Majkut, N. Metzl, J. P. Ometto, G. P. Peters, I. C. Prentice, J. T. Randerson, S. W. Running, J. L. Sarmiento, U. Schuster, S. Sitch, T. Takahashi, N. Viovy, G. R. van der Werf, F. I. Woodward (2009). Trends in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide. Nature Geoscience, 2, 831-836.
Application criteria
The successful applicant should have or expect to achieve at least an Upper Second Class Honours degree, or equivalent qualifications, in environmental sciences, mathematics, statistics, physics or correlated areas. Experience in computer programming (eg, R, Matlab, idl) is essential as the project will require the development of code for modelling and analyse the outputs. An interest in tropical forest science and climate change is also desirable.
Summary
| Application deadline: | 10th April 2011 |
|---|---|
| Value: | £13,590 plus tuition fees |
| Duration of award: | per year |
| Contact: CLES Postgraduate Research Team | cles-studentships@exeter.ac.uk |
How to apply
In order to apply you will need to complete an online web form where you must submit some personal details and upload the following documents:
· CV
· Covering letter (outlining your academic interests, prior research experience and reasons for wishing to undertake this project).
· Transcript
· 2 references (if your referees prefer, they can email the reference direct to cles-studentships@exeter.ac.uk)
The closing date for applications is midnight Sunday 10 April 2011.
**********************************************************************************************************************************
2. The link between tropical peatland palaeohydrology and the global carbon cycle Ref: 746
About the award
The University of Exeter is investing £230 million in science, engineering and medicine, building on existing areas of excellence. The interdisciplinary approach of the University’s Science Strategy is bringing staff together from across academic disciplines to tackle some of the big issues of our time. One of the five key themes of activity under the Science Strategy is Climate Change and Sustainable Futures. This theme underpins our growing strategic partnership with the Exeter-based Met Office. This partnership facilitates joint research between our two organisations to advance climate science together.
Under the leadership of Professor Peter Cox, Climate Change and Sustainable Futures consists of a vibrant community of over 100 academic staff who work in areas as diverse as physical sciences, environmental economics, health, policy and regulation, and behavioural change. For further information on our work, please visit the Climate Change and Sustainable Futures web pages.
We are inviting applications for this PhD studentship to commence October 2011. The studentship will cover tuition fees (UK/EU/International) plus an annual stipend of £13,590pa for three years. This project is one of a number that are in competition for funding. Studentships will be awarded on the basis of merit.
Primary supervisor: Professor Dan Charman, Geography
Secondary supervisor: Dr Hugo Lambert, Mathematics and Computer Sciences
Peatlands play an important role in the global carbon cycle. They hold around a third of global soil carbon, sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and produce methane through anaerobic decay. Tropical peatlands are thought to be especially important for methane emissions but rather little is known about the past hydrological changes that are a key driver of methanogenesis and other phenomena related to the carbon cycle.
The project will involve development of new palaeohydrological records from Indonesian peatlands that are being studied as part of a larger NERC-funded project, focusing especially on the last millennium. These will be used alongside other proxy records to assess the extent to which tropical peatland hydrology is linked to large-scale patterns of hydrological variability and change during the Holocene and to estimate the contribution of tropical wetlands to past global methane emissions
For informal enquiries contact Professor Dan Charman at d.j.charman@exeter.ac.uk.
Application criteria
The successful applicant should have or expect to achieve at least an Upper Second Class Honours degree, or equivalent qualifications in geography, ecology, earth sciences or a related discipline. Experience in palaeoenvironmental techniques, an understanding of Quaternary climate change and an interest in climate change are highly desirable.
Summary
| Application deadline: | 10th April 2011 |
|---|---|
| Value: | £13,590 plus tuition fees |
| Duration of award: | per year |
| Contact: CLES Postgraduate Research Team | cles-studentships@exeter.ac.uk |
How to apply
In order to apply you will need to complete an online web form where you must submit some personal details and upload the following documents:
· CV
· Covering letter (outlining your academic interests, prior research experience and reasons for wishing to undertake this project).
· Transcript
· 2 references (if your referees prefer, they can email the reference direct to cles-studentships@exeter.ac.uk)
The closing date for applications is midnight Sunday 10 April 2011.
Source: University of Exeter (http://www.exeter.ac.uk/postgraduate/money/2011studentships/?subject=44)
Monday, 7 February 2011
The Guardian - Climate Change interactive tools
The Guardian has recently launch in its Climate Change section, two very interesting interactive tools:
1) The climate change simulator:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2009/dec/14/climate-simulator
2) The Carbon Calculator
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2009/oct/20/guardian-quick-carbon-calculator
To read more about it in the Guardian website please follow the link - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change -
1) The climate change simulator:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2009/dec/14/climate-simulator
2) The Carbon Calculator
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2009/oct/20/guardian-quick-carbon-calculator
To read more about it in the Guardian website please follow the link - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change -
BBC News - Amazon drought 'severe' in 2010, raising warming fears
Last year's drought in the Amazon raises concerns about the region's capacity to continue absorbing carbon dioxide, scientists say.
Researchers report in the journal Science that the 2010 drought was more wide-spread than in 2005 - the last big one - with more trees probably lost.
The BBC's David Shukman reports.
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