Content

Research

Three quarters of the ice-free land surface are managed by humans. This has severe consequences on climate: local climate can be altered by several degrees Celsius just by the way the land is managed, and about 6 billion tons of CO2 are emitted each year from land use change, in particular from tropical deforestation. Pressure on land will rise, as growing population and affluence increases demand for food and fibre, but also because many scenarios compatible with the Paris Agreement's goals require massive deployment of land-based carbon dioxide removal through, e.g., afforestation or bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS).

The goal of our research is to deepen our understanding of how land use activities have contributed to climate change and what their potential is to help communities adapt to climate change and to mitigate global warming. We particularly focus on providing a comprehensive view of local, regional, and global scales, where ideally win-win situations for local and global climate effects can be found. We also focus on providing a comprehensive view in terms of processes, by considering greenhouse gas consequences of land use activities together with their biogeophysical effects (changes in momentum, water and energy fluxes); typically, so far, only the greenhouse has budget is considered by policy. We investigate various types of land use and land management, often in comparative form, in particular deforestation, re/afforestation, degradation, forest management, BECCS, and irrigation. Our main tools are various types of vegetation and climate models, integrated with Earth observations.

Projects

Last update: 30.04.2024 09:20 Uhr

You'll find a complete overview of all research projects of the department here.

The Land-Atmosphere Feedback Initiative (LAFI) Fachgebiet(e): Modellierung Projektleitung: Pongratz, J., Sakradzija, M. , (co-supervision), Prof. Dr. Volker Wulfmeyer et al., Universität Hohenheim Laufzeit: 04/2024 - 03/2028

RESCUE (Response of the Earth System to overshoot, Climate neUtrality and negative Emissions) Fachgebiet(e): Klimatologie, Modellierung Projektleitung: Pongratz, J. Laufzeit: 08/2023 - 08/2026

Scale-aware modeling of the ABL and its impact on deep convection (SCALABLe) Fachgebiet(e): Modellierung Projektleitung: Sakradzija, M. , Prof. Dr. Juerg Schmidli, Goethe Universität Frankfurt Laufzeit: 07/2023 - 06/2027

SOS-iClimate: Southern Ocean Salinity-Isotopic Fingerprints and Impacts on Global Climate Fachgebiet(e): Allgemeine Geographie, Fernerkundung, Geländemessungen, Hydrologie, Klimatologie, Modellierung, Regionale Geographie Projektleitung: Haumann, F. A. Laufzeit: 07/2023 - 06/2028

VERTEXSO: VERTical EXchange in the Southern Ocean Fachgebiet(e): Allgemeine Geographie, Fernerkundung, Geländemessungen, Klimatologie, Modellierung, Regionale Geographie Projektleitung: Haumann, F. A. Laufzeit: 01/2023 - 12/2027

CDRSynTra: Carbon Dioxide Removal Synthesis and Transfer project Fachgebiet(e): Klimatologie, Modellierung Projektleitung: , Laufzeit: 04/2022 - 10/2024

STEPSEC: Comparative evaluation of the potential of terrestrial carbon dioxide removal Fachgebiet(e): Geographische Gesellschaft-Umwelt-Forschung, Klimatologie, Modellierung, Vegetationsgeographie Projektleitung: Pongratz, J. Laufzeit: 10/2021 - 09/2024

CDRSynTra: Carbon Dioxide Removal Synthesis and Transfer project Fachgebiet(e): Geographische Gesellschaft-Umwelt-Forschung, Klimatologie, Modellierung, Vegetationsgeographie Projektleitung: Pongratz, J. Laufzeit: 10/2021 - 09/2024

STEPSEC: Comparative evaluation of the potential of terrestrial carbon dioxide removal Fachgebiet(e): Geographische Gesellschaft-Umwelt-Forschung, Klimatologie, Modellierung, Vegetationsgeographie Projektleitung: Pongratz, J. Laufzeit: 10/2021 - 09/2024

Occurence and Dependance of Cold-Air-Pools for Microrefugia (Dinaric Karst, Montenegro). Fachgebiet(e): Geomorphologie, Hochgebirgsforschung, Vegetationsgeographie Projektleitung: , Laufzeit: 03/2020 - 03/2022