All members of the university community are invited to the following seminar:
Title: Patterns and Behavior of Carbon and Evapotranspiration Fluxes from a Mediterranean Reed Wetland, Southern Spain
Location: Conference Room, Andalusian Institute for Earth System Research (IISTA)
Date: June 29, 2018
Time: 13:00 hours
Presentation Summary:
Wetlands cover between 2% and 6% of the Earth’s surface and store approximately 25% of the total carbon in soil. Additionally, they are important ecosystems in modulating climate change due to their high potential for capturing CO2, emitting CH4, and regulating local climate through evapotranspiration. In this context, these ecosystems often exhibit high biomass production and thus a high capacity to assimilate CO2 (the main greenhouse gas). On the other hand, being flooded ecosystems, anaerobic conditions promote methanogenic processes leading to CH4 emissions (the second greenhouse gas). In fact, they account for 51-82% of the total CH4 emissions from all global natural sources. Therefore, the role of wetlands in global warming will be determined by the balance between net atmospheric CO2 absorption and CH4 release.
Furthermore, Mediterranean wetlands exhibit high evapotranspiration, modifying the temperature and humidity of the boundary layer, altering convective processes and wind convergence patterns, which in turn modulate local climate. This work quantifies for the first time the annual carbon (CO2 and CH4) balance and evapotranspiration of a Mediterranean wetland located in Padul (Granada) using the eddy covariance micrometeorological technique, analyzing not only its seasonal and interannual variability but also the main meteorological processes and variables responsible for such variability.