Subjects in research and teaching
Terrestrial ecosystems and particular forests are important components of the global climate system as sinks or sources of water vapor and trace gases such as carbon dioxide or methane. Furthermore, terrestrial ecosystems provide essential services to society by producing food, wood, improving water quality and by shaping local and regional climate.

The Chair of Bioclimatology focuses - in research and teaching - on the interaction of forest ecosystems and atmopshere. We aims to understand the ecophysiology and biogeochemical cycles of terrestrial ecosystems and to investigate how they respond to a changing environment and to land-use management using field and laboratory measurements and models.

As key tools we use (a) micrometeorological approaches such as eddy covariance for measuring the exchange of water vapor, energy and carbon dioxide, (b) stable isotopes in carbon dioxide (13C and 18O) and water vapor (2H and 18O) using laser spectroscopy, (c) high resolution 3D models of radiative transfer and turbulence such as SPM3D und SCADIS; ecosystem models such as CANVEG, SVAT-MixedFor and regional climate models such as REMO and CLM for the analysis of feedbacks between land and atmopshere.

The Chair of Bioclimatolgy operates research sites (eddy covariance flux towers or meteo stations) in Germany (Solling, Hainich, Leinfelde, Göttinger Wald), Indonesia and Burkina Faso.