OpenMacGrid Used in Study of Carbon Balance in Forests
Research Scientist Ben Bond-Lamberty is starting a project on OpenMacGrid this week to better understand carbon balance in Canadian forests. The carbon balance of forests is influenced by many factors, including fire, climate, and even the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere. Prof. Bond-Lamberty will be using OpenMacGrid to run thousands of calculations to model the interplay between these influences.
Ben explains:
“Changes in climate, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and fire
frequency have been occurring for decades in high-latitude (boreal) forests.
We use a computer model to simulate competition between trees and moss
across a million square kilometers of Canadian forest, examining in
particular how the carbon balance — the amount of carbon gained or lost by
the soil and vegetation — of this region was affected by 20th-century changes
in the fire regime, climate and rising CO2. We're also interested in shifts
in vegetation dominance, and how soil drainage affects these dynamics. This
work is headed by Dr. S.T. Gower of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and
funded by the National Science Foundation.”
If you too would like to leverage OpenMacGrid in your research, please consider filling in the online project submission form.
Southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Canada. Image is 1000 x 1000 km; Hudson Bay is at the extreme upper right. Colors show how the carbon balance of individual cells (each 1 km2) shifted between 1948 and 2005.
