Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/C518281/1
Improving estimates of photosynthetic efficiency in forests: a fusion of micrometeorology, remote sensing and modelling
Fellowship Award
- Fellow:
- Dr CJ Nichol, University of Edinburgh, Sch of Geosciences
- Grant held at:
- University of Edinburgh, Sch of Geosciences
- Science Area:
- Terrestrial
- Atmospheric
- Overall Classification:
- Terrestrial
- ENRIs:
- Global Change
- Science Topics:
- Land - Atmosphere Interactions
- Biogeochemical Cycles
- Ecosystem Scale Processes
- Abstract:
- It is firmly believed our climate is changing and that our world is becoming warmer. It is our responsibility to find out what can we do about it and through scientific investigation and new discoveries, we can work towards helping to solve the problem. Our climate is changing because we are allowing too much of a particular gas, carbon dioxide CO2 (which gets released into the atmosphere mainly through the burning of fuels such as coal and oil) to build up in the atmosphere and it is this that is causing our climate to warm faster than it should, since CO2 acts as a warming blanket over the Earth. The thought of warmer temperatures is a particularly nice one but this will in fact cause great problems for the climate system as a whole and life on Earth. The way we produce food could be detrimentally affected as some crops prefer hotter, and some, cooler temperatures. Alternatively, making the seas warmer might reduce the food supplies for some fish populations because cold water currents often carry lots of nutrients and plankton. If these cold currents stopped it could make fish catches much lower in places like South Africa or Pew. The biggest change of all however could be an increase in sea level. Sea levels can rise mainly because the water will expand as it warms, but also because of melting ice on mountain glaciers and polar ice sheets. Low-lying land would be most affected: reclaimed farm land might become polluted by salt water in the soil, or some places could become flooded. In Bangladesh a rise of one metre (twice the predicted rise given above) could endanger nearly 20% of the land area, and make tens of millions of people homeless. The main question I am addressing in my research is how can we help reduce this increase in atmospheric CO2, and slow down this climatic warming. Forests (and all plants and trees) perform a unique job in that when they grow, through a process known as photosynthesis, they absorb CO2, in the same way a sponge absorbs water. There are ways to measure how much CO2 the forests are taking out of the atmosphere and as a scientist I have tasked myself with finding new and improved ways to measure how much the forests are absorbing and help us understand the processes involved in this. One of the main issues is that we need to be measuring very large areas of forest (as there are areas of countries like Russia and Canada literally covered in trees), so we need a scientific approach that allows us to 'look' at these large areas. It would not be possible to measure every tree in a forest, let alone across many countries so we must try and find a way of looking at whole forests across the Earth's surface. One of the most powerful tools is 'remote sensing'. Remote sensing means getting information about distant objects. There are many ways to sense far away objects, and how we do that determines what we can learn. Usually we present this data as drawings or images because our eyes and brains are so powerful. We see different patterns in the same data depending on how it is displayed. The main focus of my research will be to use images of forests taken from planes as well satellites in space, and in doing so can obtain important information on how much CO2 forests are taking up. When we have this information we will be able to inform the people who manage the forests, as well as politicians, who are also responsible for making decisions on protocols related to climate change as well as how our land is managed, about how valuable our forests are and exactly how much they help us control the CO2 in the atmosphere, and our climate.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/C518281/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Postdoctoral Fellowship
This fellowship award has a total value of £147,412
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| Total - Staff | Total - T&S | Total - Other Costs |
|---|---|---|
| £111,314 | £7,599 | £28,500 |
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