Consortium > MPI-BGC

Max Planck Society (MPG) – Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (MPI-BGC)

Organization short name: MPG
acronym:
web page: www.bgc-jena.mpg.de

Description of the organization

The Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry (MPI-BGC) is a research institute of the German Max-Planck Society (MPG), founded in 1997. Its research mission is the investigation of the global biogeochemical cycles and their interaction with the climate system. The institute combines strong observational expertise (soil carbon, vegetation structure, vegetation-atmosphere fluxes etc.) with global scale modelling (e.g. global carbon cycle).

Expertise and experience of the organization

The MPI-BGC is one of the pivotal European biogeochemical cycle research institutions, and as such is coordinating the EU-funded CARBOEUROPE-IP project. The Institute is strongly involved in the EU-funded NITROEUROPE, CARBOAFRICA and CIRCE-IP projects. MPI-BGC currently hosts the European scientific office of CarboEurope and has proven skills in co-ordination of international projects. MPI-BGC regularly advised policy makers and has frequent contacts with media and the broad public.

Selected reference projects

EU-projects (MR):

Key scientific / technical personnel

Dr. Markus Reichstein, head of Independent Model-Data Integration Group at MPI-BGC, WP and research line leader in several EU projects, lead integration activities in CARBOEUROPE-IP, more than 50 publications in peer reviewed journals, expert in modelling soil carbon related processes, processing and synthesis of ecosystem carbon and water flux, robust ecosystem model-data integration techniques and diagnostic ecosystem modelling.
Coordinator.

Prof. Dr. Martin Heimann, director of MPI-BGC, coordinator of CARBOEUROPE Integration component and several other EU Projects, IPCC lead author and world-renowned expert in global cycle and atmospheric modelling.
Dr. Christian Beer, scientist, expert of Dynamic Global Vegetation modelling, diagnostic up-scaling and currently developing soil model formulations for global-scale models. Dr. Christian Wirth, head of the junior research group "Organismic Biogeochemistry", more than 30 articles in peer-reviewed journals and 13 book chapters in the fields of carbon cycling, disturbance ecology, tree allometry, forest demography, and biodiversity-functioning relationships and has contributed to the IPCC and IGBP activities.
Dr. Dorothea Frank, Research Assistant, geoecologist, several years of experience in the management of interdisciplinary EU (and other) projects.

Responsibilities in CARBO-Extreme

  • Long Term Carbon Measurements and Climate (WP3)
  • Model-data integration (WP5), (lead)
  • Model experiments and scenario analysis (WP6)
  • Dissemination and policy interaction (WP8)
  • Coordination (WP9)

Selected recent relevant publications

Beer C et al., Mean annual GPP of Europe derived from its water balance, Geophysical Research Letters, 34, L05401, doi:10.1029/2006GL029006, 2007.link to publisher

Beer C, et al., Effects of soil freezing and thawing on vegetation carbon density in Siberia - A modeling analysis with the LPJ-DGVM. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 21, 2007. link to publisher

Ciais P, Reichstein M, et al., Europe-wide reduction in primary productivity caused by the heat and drought in 2003. Nature 437:529-533, 2005. link to publisher

Heimann M, Reichstein M, Terrestrial ecosystem carbon dynamics and feedbacks. Nature, 451, 289-292, 2008. link to publisher

Reichstein M et al., Determinants of terrestrial ecosystem carbon balance inferred from European eddy covariance flux sites. Geophysical Research Letters 34, L01402.262., 2007. link to publisher

Reichstein M, et al., Reduction of ecosystem productivity and respiration during the European summer 2003 climate anomaly: a joint flux tower, remote sensing and modelling analysis. Global Change Biology 13, 634–651, 2007. link to publisher

Wirth C, Czimczik CI, Schulze E-D, Beyond annual budgets: Carbon flux at different temporal scales in fire-prone Siberian Scots pine forests. Tellus 54B(5), 611-630, 2002. link to publisher

Wirth C, Schumacher J, Schulze E-D, Generic biomass functions for Norway spruce in central Europe – a meta-analysis approach towards prediction and uncertainty estimation. Tree Physiology 24, 121-139, 2004. link to publisher