Natasha MacBean Talk
Video of research talk held on February 15th, 2022 at 11:30am
Abstract
Terrestrial ecosystems currently act as a global sink of carbon, absorbing ~30% of anthropogenic CO emissions. However, considerable uncertainty remains in our understanding of the processes involved in this carbon sink, and how these processes vary over space and time. This uncertainty arises because of complex terrestrial ecosystem responses to climate change, rising CO , and land use change, all of which interact to produce a mixture of positive and negative “carbon-climate” feedbacks. As a result of our uncertainty in the spatio-temporal patterns and processes underpinning these feedbacks, spread in model predictions of the carbon sink is high; some models even predict the land may switch from sink to source of carbon to the atmosphere by the end of the century.
In this talk, I will highlight two key themes of my research: 1) reducing uncertainty in global carbon cycle predictions; and 2) understanding vegetation-carbon-water interactions in climate-sensitive dryland ecosystems. I will present how I use field and satellite remote sensing data analysis, together with process-based modeling, to explore questions such as: Which regions are dominating the global carbon sink?; What are the key processes in water-limited dryland ecosystems that contribute to global carbon cycle variability?; and How is environmental change driving changes in vegetation patterns in spatially heterogeneous mixed shrub-grass ecosystems? Finally, I will discuss future research directions, including improving estimates of long-term carbon storage; better modeling of coupled plant-water interactions; investigating carbon-climate feedbacks in Arctic tundra; and exploring how land management scenario modeling could help to mitigate negative consequences of global environmental change
