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Abstract:
The Earth and its surface are tightly linked to the global climate system by turbulent exchange fluxes of energy and matter, for example
greenhouse gases. This is true both for “deep Earth” geologically generated heat or gases reaching the surface and those of
biogenic origin in the near-surface environment. For a better understanding of Earth-atmosphere interactions and in particular their
feedbacks, the Helmholtz Young Investigators Group TEAM at GFZ studies the surface-atmosphere exchange of heat, water vapor,
carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) on a range of temporal and spatial scales – from hours to years and from < 1m² to more than
10 000 km². A regional focus is on degraded peatlands. While natural peatlands play a central role in the climate system as major carbon sink storing twice the amount of carbon that is contained in the Earth’s forests, a large fraction of the world’s peatlands has been drained for agriculture and subsequently lost that carbon storage capacity. Drained and degraded peatlands are significant and
longterm carbon dioxide sources and thus contribute to further climate warming. In NE Germany, up to 20 % of the overall carbon dioxide emissions are from drained peat and a tool in reducing national greenhouse gas emission is therefore the re-wetting of peatlands to restore their natural carbon sink capacity. TEAM monitors the long-term greenhouse gas dynamics in such re-wetted sites and investigates the underlying processes and spatiotemporal drivers of the dynamics.
