How do ecosystems respond to changing weather patterns, rising temperatures and increasing carbon dioxide concentrations? Is the effect of precipitation more important than that of temperature? Or are ecosystem dynamics more strongly affected by nutrient availability? What is the role of extreme events in shaping biogeochemical cycles? To find out the answers we need to understand the interactions among three complex systems: climate, vegetation, and soil. Thus, we combine experiments and in-situ long-term observation with Earth Observations gathered by aircraft and satellites across a range of spatial scales, and embrace data-driven machine learning and theory-driven mechanistic modelling. With our research, we try to understand how the terrestrial biosphere reacts to and exerts feedbacks on ongoing environmental change and variation in atmospheric conditions.
Latest publications
Poehls, J., Alonso, L., Koirala, S., Carvalhais, N., & Reichstein, M. (2025). Downscaling soil moisture to sub-km resolutions with simple machine learning ensembles. Journal of Hydrology,652: 132624. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.132624. // Figure 4: Prediction regime for the Dense, Prob, and WDL ensembles. Each ensemble member (cube) is trained on samples weighted against imbalances in a static variable. These predictions are then averaged to provide an ensemble prediction.
Poehls, J., Alonso, L., Koirala, S., Carvalhais, N., & Reichstein, M. (2025). Downscaling soil moisture to sub-km resolutions with simple machine learning ensembles. Journal of Hydrology,652: 132624. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.132624. // Figure 4: Prediction regime for the Dense, Prob, and WDL ensembles. Each ensemble member (cube) is trained on samples weighted against imbalances in a static variable. These predictions are then averaged to provide an ensemble prediction.
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Wang, C.; Chen, J.; Lee, S.-C.; Xiong, L.; Su, T.; Lin, Q.; Xu, C.-Y.: Response and recovery times of vegetation productivity under drought stress: Dominant factors and relationships. Journal of Hydrology 655, 132945 (2025)
Winkler, A.; Sierra, C.: Towards a new generation of impulse‐response functions for integrated earth system understanding and climate change attribution. Geophysical Research Letters 52 (8), e2024GL112295 (2025)
Pallandt, M.; Schrumpf, M.; Lange, H.; Reichstein, M.; Yu, L.; Ahrens, B.: Modelling the effect of climate–substrate interactions on soil organic matter decomposition with the Jena soil model. Biogeosciences 22 (7), pp. 1907 - 1928 (2025)
Engel, F.; Hoek van Dijke, A. J.; Roebroek, C. T. J.; Benedict, I.: Can large-scale tree cover change negate climate change impacts on future water availability? Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 29 (7), pp. 1895 - 1918 (2025)
