Consortium > UNIABDN

University of Aberdeen

Organization short name: UNIABDN
acronym:
web page: www.abdn.ac.uk/idx.php

Description of the organization

The University of Aberdeen is a premier teaching and research University in the UK established in 1495. The work on the project will be carried out in the Insititute of Biological & Environmental Sciences, which was ranked 2nd in the UK in the most recent Research Assessment Exercise of UK University Departments. Research within the Institute covers the whole spectrum of biology from microbes to vertebrates and from molecular to global scales.

Expertise and experience of the organization

The team conducting the work is a leader in the field of modelling greenhouse gas fluxes and soil C and N cycling. Members of the research group have co-ordinated many national and international projects in this area and have produced a number of seminal research papers on the subject. Team members also chair and serve on national and international advisory panels on these issues. The team contribute to numerous EU and other projects on modelling cropland or soil C & N cycling and are providing models to the Joint UK Land Environment Simulator (JULES) and advice to EU, UK and Scottish governments on issues related to soils, climate change and renewable energy.

Selected reference projects

  • CarboEurope-IP: Assessment of the European Terrestrial Carbon Balance.
  • NitroEurope-IP. The nitrogen cycle and its influence on the European greenhouse gas balance
  • QUERCC: Quantifying ecosystem roles in the carbon cycle.
  • PICCMAT. Policy Incentives For Climate Change Mitigation Agricultural Techniques

Key scientific / technical personnel

Prof. Pete Smith, WP6 leader, is Royal Society-Wolfson Professor of Soils & Global Change in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Aberdeen. Author, Lead Author and Convening Lead Author for 4 IPCC reports, partner and coordinator of numerous research projects funded by EU, UK and other sources and contributor to a number of expert committees (e.g. European Climate Change Programme). Editor / Board member of 6 journals including International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment and Global Change Biology. Areas of interest are the carbon cycle, greenhouse gas emissions, the impacts, adaptation & mitigation of climate change, ecosystem modelling, agriculture and soils.
Dr. Jo Smith, Reader in ecosystem modelling. Her main areas of expertise are in modelling soil organic matter and nutrient dynamics. She is co-leader of the Environmental Modelling Group (2 Academic staff, 9 Post-docs, 6 PhD students). Associate editor of the Journal of Environmental Quality.
Mr. Martin Wattenbach, Research assistant at University of Aberdeen, assistant of the cropland coordinator in CarboEurope IP. 2007 contributing author to the 4th IPCC assessment report. Honorary lecturer at the University of Potsdam. Main areas of interest, ecosystem modelling, soils, hydrology, forestry and agricultural systems.

Responsibilities in CARBO-Extreme

  • Long Term Carbon Measurements and Climate (WP3)
  • Model-data integration (WP5)
  • Model experiments and scenario analysis (WP6), (lead)
  • Carbon vulnerability synthesis (WP7)
  • Dissemination and policy interaction (WP8)

Selected recent relevant publications

Janssens IA, Freibauer A, Ciais P, Smith P, et al., Europe’s terrestrial biosphere absorbs 7-12% of European anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Science 300 (Jun 6 2003): 1538-1542, 2003. link to publisher

Fang C, Smith P, Moncrieff JB & Smith JU, Similar response of labile and resistant soil organic matter pools to changes in temperature. Nature 433, 57-59, 2005. link to publisher

Schröter D, Cramer W, Leemans R,…Smith JU, Smith P et al., Ecosystem service supply and human vulnerability to global change in Europe. Science 310 (5752), 1333-1337, 2005. link to publisher

Smith JU, Smith P, Wattenbach M, et al., Projected changes in mineral soil carbon of European croplands and grasslands, 1990-2080. Global Change Biology 11, 2141–2152, 2005. link to publisher

Reay DS, Sabine CL, Smith P & Hymus G, Climate change 2007: Spring-time for sinks. Nature 446, 727-728, 2007. link to publisher

Smith JU, Smith P, Wattenbach M Gottschalk P et al. Projected changes in cropland soil organic carbon stocks in European Russia and the Ukraine, 1990-2070. Global Change Biology 13, 342-356, 2007. link to publisher

Smith P, Martino D, Cai Z et al., Greenhouse gas mitigation in agriculture. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B. 363, 789-813, 2008. link to publisher