Carbon Cycle

The goal of the carbon cycle activity is to understand the feedbacks between physical and biological processes involving the carbon cycle, in order to predict changes in carbon fluxes at the Earth's surface. Current research work is centred on:

• Preparations for observing atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane from the OCO and GOSAT satellite missions and their use to infer land and ocean carbon sinks and sources.
• Assembly of ground-based data from chambers, flux towers and instrumented towers, together with airborne observations, to improve and test EO inversions and C models
• Measurements of trace gases and fluxes from biomass burning
• First estimates of carbon balance of tropical forest subject to deforestation and degradation
• Development of improved terrestrial carbon models, especially as regards their representation of soil and soil water processes
• Quantification of ocean biogeochemistry and carbon fluxes
• Quantification of bio-physical interactions and air-sea carbon dioxide fluxes
• Data assimilation for marine ecosystem models (which integrates with the climate theme).

Models of the NW European Shelf calculate the contribution of biological and physical processes to air-sea exchange in this region, enabling us to estimate its importance in the global carbon cycle (position values show sinks).	Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over land and sea have been measured using novel methods for processing data from the European SCIAMACHY satellite sensor.
Rice paddies (magenta): major source of methane The C cycle is strongly linked to climate change through trace gas fluxes, especially CO2 and methane, but is equally strongly linked to wider issues of global change and loss of biodiversity through large-scale ecosystem modification and exploitation of resources.