Monitoring the global carbon cycle - a scientific challenge
| Title: | Monitoring the global carbon cycle - a scientific challenge |
| Category: | Third-party event |
| Date: | 14. June 2011, 16:15 - 17:15 |
| Venue: | Empa, Dübendorf |
| Theodor-Erismann-Auditorium, VE102 | |
| Speaker: | Prof. Dr Martin Heimann, Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena |
| Leader: | Dr Brigitte Buchmann, Empa |
| Organisation: | Dr Brigitte Buchmann, Empa |
| Costs: | Free entrance, guests are welcome |
| Download: | as calendar event |
The global carbon cycle has become an important research topic in Earth System science. In order to understand and predict and potentially manage its behavior in response to human influences and climate change, a global scale observing system for carbon is needed. Such a system has to track carbon pools and pool changes in the atmosphere, in the ocean and on land with a spatial and temporal resolution that is sufficient to (1) attribute changes to particular processes and process drivers, and (2) that allows to estimate regional carbon balances in order to validate carbon mitigation policies. Our current observation capacity covers atmospheric concentrations, exchange fluxes over ecosystems and ocean carbon parameters. Furthermore, remote sensing of CO2 from space and carbon related surface properties have been added to the observation portfolio. Each of these data streams have provided new, impressive insights into the dynamics of the carbon flows in the Earth System. The real scientific challenge, however, consists of bringing the different data streams together in a consistent way. First attempts to apply data assimilation methods demonstrate a way forward, however, limitations in current carbon cycle modeling systems still pose serious difficulties.