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.
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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.
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