ESSE & CRESS Colloquium: Land-atmosphere interactions across the soil-vegetation-atmosphere continuum

Abstract: Land-atmosphere interactions strongly impact local to regional climate and result from complex feedbacks between soil, vegetation, atmospheric processes. In a warming climate, changes in land-atmosphere interactions are expected to modify local climate change trajectories. Fully understanding the impacts of changing land-atmosphere interactions requires detailed observations of water, energy, and carbon cycle processes across the soil-vegetation-atmosphere continuum. In this talk, I will demonstrate how ecosystem and atmospheric observations can be combined to better understand near-surface climate dynamics and carbon cycle processes. Case studies will focus on atmospheric boundary layer dynamics in the monsoon climate of the southwestern US, on wildfire impacts on near-surface climate in the boreal biome, and on carbon cycle dynamics in humid temperate forests of Atlantic Canada.

About the speaker: Manuel Helbig is a professor in the Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University. He received his PhD in geography at the Université de Montréal. He joined the department in 2020 as an assistant professor. Before that, he was a postdoctoral researcher at McMaster University and McGill University and a visiting research fellow at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His research focuses on surface-atmosphere interactions and feedbacks with regional and global climate systems. In his work, he combines surface energy and greenhouse gas flux observations with satellite and ground-based remote sensing and modelling approaches. He has authored and co-authored over 40 papers covering the fields of atmospheric science, hydrology, and biogeochemistry. He is an active member of the AmeriFlux network and PI of the Acadia Research Forest flux tower observatory.