Spotlight on H2 fluxes at Harvard Forest
PAOC Spotlight: Back to the forest Interview
Micro-organisms have produced dramatic shifts in the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere and continue to be important drivers of ocean- and land-atmosphere exchanges of gases that have a strong influence on atmospheric composition and climate. An interesting example is the microbial influence on atmospheric molecular hydrogen (H2), which dominates the fate of this gas in the atmosphere. H2 is emitted to the atmosphere by about half natural and half anthropogenic, or human-induced, processes but it is predominantly removed from the atmosphere by microorganisms in the soil, which makes this process the most important, yet least understood, player in the atmospheric H2 budget.
The MIT Program in Oceans, Atmospheres, and Climate interviewed me on the current state of my work with a custom instrument deployed at the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research site in central Massachusetts. Laura is in the Climate Physics and Chemistry Program. Her advisor is Ron Prinn.
