Robert Grant is the Professor of Ecosystem Modeling in the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta and his presentation is about his on-going research on the impacts of climate change on the ecosystem in North America.
Grant aims to determine the impacts of climate warming on the spatial and temporal trends in ecosystem productivity in North America during the last 30 years. He wants to learn if these impacts are apparent in major drought events during this period, and if these impacts affect the ability of ecosystems to sequester carbon. He also seeks to understand the changes in active layer depth of permafrost regions that can be attributed to warming.
By using the extensive mathematical model Grant has developed over the last 25 years, he aims to capture the biological, biochemical, and biophysical processes that drive ecosystem productivity in response to climate and disturbance. The model drivers include: climate, CO2, nitrogen deposition, soil, and land use changes.
Data that has been collected for this thorough study includes: spatiotemporal trends in temperature and precipitation in North America from 1979 -- 2010; ecosystem types (coniferous and deciduous forests, grasslands, crops, tundra ); disturbances (forest fires, tilling, fertilizer use, and harvest), and real time weather from 1979 -- 2010.
The modelling runs were sectioned off into thirty kilometers squared sections, which mean a total of fifty thousand grid squares across North America. Model output was tested by comparing modelled annual GPP with twenty five EC derived GPP across wide ranges of eco-regions. Research is on-going.
This presentation is a part of the Alberta Soil Science Workshop from February 2014.
