Preliminary thesis title: Methane emissions from high latitude peatlands - bridging the abyss between environmental factors and ecosystem scale methane formation and emission
Peatlands store an important amount of carbon (over 30% of the global soil carbon) despite covering less than 3% of the earth surface. The carbon balance in peatlands involve exchanges of several greenhouse gases (GHG) such as CO2, CH4, and NO2. Depending on the land use on the peatland, the exchange of some of the GHG would dominate. In the case of my PhD project which focuses on pristine mires (unmanaged peatlands that are actively forming peat), although there is an important carbon storage by sequestering a lot of CO2, there is also a substantial release of methane, which is a more potent GHG than CO2.
The goal of my PhD project is to investigate the heterogeneity of ecosystem scale methane fluxes at different sites across the same peatland system. Methane emissions are measured with Eddy covariance towers at the four sites, and then further linked to the possible drivers of the production, oxidation and emission of methane, with eventually a possible downscaling of the observed emissions to a few centimeters resolution. More about my project can be read through the description of the Kulbäcksliden Research Infrastructure where my studies are taking place.