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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…
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Instrument deployment at Harvard Forest
After over a year of designing, building, and testing a custom instrument system to measure fluxes of molecular hydrogen (H2), I deployed the system to the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research site in Petersham, Massachusetts (http://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu/). With the instrument installed, I will measure hydrogen fluxes for a year to determine the seasonal dynamics of H2 cycling in this mixed deciduous forest, and in particular, to characterize the strong soil sink for atmospheric H2. The instrument shed was tight, and I was packing a lot of equipment. But the move in day was a successful and fun experience thanks to the help of colleagues at Harvard University. This short documentary created by fellow PhD student Ryan Abernathey…