Consortium > DTU

National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy, Risø DTU

Organization short name: Risoe DTU
acronym: RISOE
web page: www.risoe.dk

Description of the organization

Risoe is part of the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and is The National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy in Denmark, with research groups within bio energy, wind energy, fuel cells, optics, nuclear research and systems analysis. The Biosystems department has 3 research groups working with bio energy production and conversion and environmental impacts studies. The department has a staff of 100 scientists and technicians.

Expertise and experience of the organization

The department has many years of experience in long-term greenhouse gas flux measurements, ecosystem manipulation, soil chemistry, plant nutrition, risk assessment in plant and energy production and biomass conversion to bio fuels and bio materials. The Biosystems department has coordinated and participated in numerous national and international ecosystem research projects with particular focus on biogeochemical cycling and impacts of air pollution and energy production on terrestrial ecosystems – forest, agriculture, grass- and shrublands. The Biosystems department is a leading European research group in designing and conducting large field scale ecosystem manipulation experiments with external drivers such as nitrogen, climate and CO2. Risø DTU is a leading Danish Research Institute within large-scale field measurements by eddy covariance techniques in both forest and agricultural ecosystems. The department has strong experience in measuring atmosphere-biosphere exchange of C and N compounds, use and measurements of stable isotopes, soil-microbe interaction in C and N turnover, soil water transport of chemical elements, advanced greenhouse facilities and assessment of environmental impacts on ecosystem functioning.

Selected reference projects

  • CLIMOOR – EU projects 1998-2001, Climate change effects on shrublands and moorlands
  • VULCAN – EU project 2001-2004, Vulnerability of European shrublands to climate change
  • CARBOEUROPE – EU project 2003-2008, Carbon sequestration in European forest ecosystems
  • NITROEUROPE – EU project 2006-2011, C and N interactions and GHG emissions from terrestrial ecosystems
  • CLIMAITE – National project 2004-2012, Multifactor climate change experiments in a shrubland ecosystem

Responsibilities in CARBO-Extreme

  • Network of Ecosystem Manipulation Experiments (WP2)
  • Long Term Carbon Measurements and Climate (WP3)
  • Data infrastructure and model support (WP4)

Key scientific / technical personnel

Claus Beier, head of programme, science coordinator, senior scientist. Experimental manipulations and biogeochemical cycling and modelling. Coordinator of several EU projects Andreas Ibrom, senior scientist at DTU and Professor for Biometeorology at the University of Göttingen, Germany, eddy covariance, carbon sequestration and canopy modelling. Partner in several EU projects. Teis Mikkelsen, Senior scientist, ecophysiology and climate change, partner in numerous national and EU projects Leon Linden, PostDoc, dynamic ecosystem modelling, partner in numerous national and EU projects Preben Jørgensen, senior technician, technical design and maintenance. Many years of experience in experimental design.

Selected recent relevant publications

Beier C et al., Novel Approaches to Study Climate Change Effects on Terrestrial Ecosystems in the Field - Drought and Passive Night Time Warming. Ecosystems 7, 583-597, 2004. link to publisher

Mikkelsen TN et al., Experimental design of multifactor climate change experiments with elevated CO2, warming and drought – the CLIMAITE project. Functional Ecology 22(1), 185 - 195, 2008. link to publisher

Lagergren F, Lindroth A, Dellwik E, Ibrom A, Lankreijer H, Launiainen S, Mölder M, Kolari P, Pilegaard K, Vesala T, Biophysical controls on CO2 fluxes of three Northern forests based on long-term eddy covariance data. Tellus B 60(2), 2008. link to publisher

Ibrom A. et al. A comparative analysis of simulated and observed photosynthetic CO2 uptake in two coniferous forest canopies. Tree Physiol. 26:845 - 864, 2006link to publisher

Ibrom A., Dellwik E., Jensen N.O., Flyvbjerg H. and Pilegaard K.. Strong low-pass filtering effects on water vapour flux measurements with closed-path eddy correlation systems. Agric. For. Meteorol. 147:140 -156, 2007 link to publisher