Climate-ecosystem-disturbance interactions group

Mission

(i) quantify ecosystem vulnerability and resilience to climate extremes and changes in disturbance patterns, including the role of management;
(ii) understand the effects of compound disturbances (climatic and/or biotic) on ecosystem dynamics and biogeochemical cycling;
(iii) gain insights on the drivers of inter-annual to decadal variability in the carbon cycle with a focus on ocean-atmosphere-land teleconnections.

By combining observation-based data (such as eddy-covariance, atmospheric monitoring, remote-sensing) and data-driven and process-based modeling, the group’s research aims at reducing uncertainties in key components of the earth system, particularly the feedbacks between climate and the carbon-cycle and better constrain the contribution of land ecosystems for climate change mitigation.

ESA-CCI RECCAP2: The pilot project from ESA-CCI aims at supporting, in cooperation with the GCP, the scientific synthesis and assessment activities of regional carbon budgets and their drivers of the ‘REgional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes’, phase 2 (RECCAP-2) project by making use of regional cuts of annually updated global terrestrial and ocean carbon models, and atmospheric CO2 inversions, taking stock of new satellite-based surface monitoring products of climate and ecological variables now available within the framework of ESA-CCI.
Group members involved: Ana Bastos (PI, steering committee member)