New weather station for environmental research

14. April 2015

The former Manor Linde is located at the border of a natural reserve in the picturesque Havelland Luch area in Brandenburg. With its 320 hectares of fields and forests it offers optimal conditions for environmental research. The Zwillenberg-Tietz Foundation, owner of the research station Linde, supports suitable scientific projects with environmental focus.

The research station Linde was recently complemented with new equipment: In second half of March Olaf Kolle and his team set up a new meteorological station following the guidelines of the German Weather Service DWD. The 10 meter high triangle lattice tower now hosts instruments for measuring air temperature, humidity, pressure, global radiation, wind velocity, and wind direction. Within the surroundings of the tower soil temperatures and soil humidity are measured at different depths up to one meter. A precipitation sensor registers rain, snow, and hale. Shortly the measured values will be available on the webpage of the Zwillenberg-Tietz Foundation.

The new meteorological station is part of a project aiming at generating an early warning system for ecosystem changes. Dr. Vanessa-Nina Roth and Prof. Gerd Gleixner from MPI for Biogeochemistry investigate the influence of vegetation on the chemical composition and the export of dissolved organic compounds. They chose three different locations for their studies: grassland, oak forest, and pine forest. At each location soil water is collected at 5 different depths between 5 and 60 cm of which the content of dissolved organic and inorganic carbon as well as important nutients is determined. The molecular composition of the dissolved organic components is identified with high resolution mass spectrometry. The resulting molecular fingerprints with regard to the environmental parameters are supposed to show how the characteristics of an ecosystem influence the molecular fingerprints. The knowledge of these interactions will be used to set up an early warning system for detecting changes in ecosystems.

The project and the weather station are supported by the Zwillenberg-Tietz Foundation.

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