Project

Climate Change

Climate change is considered to be a source of major uncertainty in the near future, among others with regard to food availability, desertification, and flood risks. Understanding the possible changes that may be caused by climate climate can help us to deal with these uncertainties.

As carbon dioxide is one of the elementary greenhouse gasses, one element of understanding the effects of climate change is by investigating the workings of the carbon cycle, and the evolution of carbon dioxide during the Ice Age. I am working together with A.W. Omta at MIT on modelling the marine carbon cycle, where we consider the feedback roles of different biota like calcifiers on the carbon dioxide levels.

This project is also connected to the project on tipping points, in which an overview is made of the different types of tipping points that may occur in terrestrial systems, and of what effect they may have with regard to the possible loss of ecosystem services.