Theme 1: Climate and Environmental Dynamics

Topics to which we pay special attention are:

• Water cycle: we study how climate change reshapes the terrestrial water, with a focus on changes in droughts and floods.
• Permafrost and peatlands: we investigate the changing interactions between carbon storage and hydrology of permafrost and peatland landscapes.
• Vegetation and soils: we study trees and forests, and their interactions with soils to understand their roles in the water and carbon cycles.
• Fire: we study the role of fire in the carbon cycle and Earth system and fire’s interactions with climate, vegetation and society.
• Greenhouse gases and aerosols: we assess and model past, present and future concentrations of various atmospheric particles and gases.
• Ice sheets and ocean circulation: we study the past and future evolution of ice sheets and global ocean circulation on centennial to multi-millennial time scales.
• Paleoclimate & paleontology: geochemical and isotopic analyses of sedimentary archives, biogenic carbonates, and vertebrate remains inform us about past, present and future climate changes at seasonal-to-millennial time scales.
• Deep carbon cycle: we study the geochemical cycling of carbon and other elements through the Earth’s mantle and core.

The following research groups participate in the research theme 1:

• Arctic hydrology and biogeochemistry (Dr. Jorien Vonk)
• Atmospheric composition (Prof. Sander Houweling)
• Biogeochemistry (Dr. Liam Heffernan)
• Climate & ecosystems change (Dr. Sander Veraverbeke)
• Climate modeling and marine geology (Prof. Didier Roche)
• Hydrology (Dr. Ype van der Velde)
• Petrology (Prof. Gareth Davies)
• Planetary science (Prof. Wim van Westrenen)
• Sedimentology & stratigraphy (Prof. Klaudia Kuiper)