Dr. Theresa Blume
EnvironmentHydrology, Hydrological Processes, Experimental Hydrology, Eco-Hydrology
Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie, Hamburg
Environment
Climate science
Two-way coupling of human activity and climate via the terrestrial biosphere
1. Effects of land use change on climate and the carbon cycle. About two thirds of the Earth's land surface are directly affected by human land use activities, in particular by deforestation, agricultural expansion, and urbanization. Using Earth system models and developing datasets of land use change, I simulate the impact of land use on the exchange of water, carbon, momentum, and energy between the land surface and the atmosphere. This allows me to analyze the resulting changes in climate, land carbon stocks, and the atmospheric CO2 concentration on the local to global scale. Key questions refer to the human contribution to past and present climate change, strengths of feedbacks, and the mitigation potential of afforestation.
2. Land management and climate. The looming scarcity of land resources will continue to cause intensification of agriculture and stronger management of forest, yet management effects are poorly represented in current climate models. I am currently working on integrating forest management into an Earth system model to test the susceptibility of climate to changes in management methods, including such of adaptation.
3. Early beginning of the Anthropocene. By land use change and industrial activity, humans have substantially modified all aspects of our environment. Through reconstruction of historical population and land use data and paleoclimate simulations of the last millennium I have assessed at which point in the Holocene humans have altered the Earth system significantly for the first time.
4. Climate impacts on food security. While most of my research investigates the impact of humans on climate, here I assess the other direction of this feedback loop. Focus lies on the effects of geoengineering on crop yields.
Fast Track Program of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, 2012 – 2014
Editor's Citation for Excellence in Refereeing for Reviews of Geophysics, 2011
Wladimir Peter Köppen Award of the KlimaCampus, University of Hamburg, 2010
Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society, 2009
Young Scientists' Outstanding Poster Paper (YSOPP) Award of the EGU, 2008
Scholarship of the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes), 2001 – 2005
Grant from the German-American Fulbright Program, 2003 – 2004
English, French, German, Latin, Spanish
Corinne Le Quéré; Andrew, Robbie M; Friedlingstein, Pierre; Sitch, Stephen; Pongratz, Julia; et al. (2018): Global Carbon Budget 2017, Earth System Science Data, Vol. 10, Iss. 1: 405-448.
Karl-Heinz Erb, Thomas Kastner, Christoph Plutzar, Anna Liza S. Bais, Nuno Carvalhais, Tamara Fetzel, Simone Gingrich, Helmut Haberl, Christian Lauk, Maria Niedertscheider, Julia Pongratz, Martin Thurner and Sebastiaan Luyssaert (2017), Unexpectedly large impact of forest management and grazing on global vegetation biomass, Nature, 553, pages 73–76.
Julia Pongratz, Han Dolman, Axel Don, Karl‐Heinz Erb, Richard Fuchs, Martin Herold, Chris Jones, Tobias Kuemmerle, Sebastiaan Luyssaert, Patrick Meyfroidt, Kim Naudts (2017), Models meet data: Challenges and opportunities in implementing land management in Earth system models, Global Change Biology, https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13988.
Luyssaert, S., Jammet, M., Stoy, C., Estel, S., J. Pongratz et al: Land management and land-cover change have impacts of similar magnitude on surface temperature, Nature Clim. Change 4, 389-393.
J. Pongratz, C.H. Reick, R.A. Houghton, and J. House: Terminology as a key uncertainty in net land use and land cover change carbon flux estimates, Earth Syst. Dynam. 5.
Contributing author to Working Group I contribution to the IPCC 5th Assessment Report Climate Change 2013, Chapters 6 & 8.
J. Pongratz: Plant a tree, but tend it well, Nature 498, 47-48.
R.A. Houghton, J.I. House, J. Pongratz, G.R. van der Werf, R.S. DeFries, M.C. Hansen, C. Le Quéré, and N. Ramankutty: Carbon emissions from land use and land-cover change, Biogeosciences 9, 5125-5142, doi:10.5194/bg-9-5125-2012.
J. Pongratz, D.B. Lobell, L. Cao, and K. Caldeira: Crop yields in a geoengineered climate, Nature Climate Change, doi:10.1038/nclimate1373.
J. Pongratz, C.H. Reick, T. Raddatz, K. Caldeira, and M. Claussen: Past land use decisions have increased mitigation potential of reforestation, Geophys. Res. Lett. 38, L15701, doi:10.1029/2011GL047848.
J. Pongratz, C.H. Reick, T. Raddatz, and M. Claussen: Effects of anthropogenic land cover change on the carbon cycle of the last millennium, Global Biogeochem. Cycles 23, GB4001, doi:10.1029/2009GB003488.
J. Pongratz, C. Reick, T. Raddatz, and M. Claussen: A reconstruction of global agricultural areas and land cover for the last millennium, Global Biogeochem. Cycles 22, GB3018, doi:10.1029/2007GB003153
Priority program "Climate engineering" of the German Research Foundation (DFG)
Emmy-Noether independent junior research group on "Forest management in the Earth system" funded by the DFG
VERIFY: Observation-based system for monitoring and verification of greenhouse gases funded under Horizon2020
Associate deputy editor for journal "Climatic Change"
Guest editor for journal "Biogeosciences"
Member of the American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Member of the editorial advisory board for the journal "Anthropocene Review"
Member of the ISSI International Team "Integrating Earth Observation data into the description of land management practices into global carbon cycle models"
Member of the scientific advisory group for the EU FP7 program LUC4C
Welt Online. "CO2 aus vorindustrieller Zeit belastet heutiges Klima" (07/17 2012)
Spiegel Online. "Klimawandel: CO2 beeinflusst Atmosphäre für Jahrhunderte" (07/16 2012)
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "Zukunft ist menschlich. Das Anthropozän erobert den öffentlichen Raum" (07/04 2012)
The Salt, NPR's Food Blog. "Geoengineered food? Climate fix could boost crop yields, but with risks" (01/23 2012)
Research Spotlight in EOS. "Farmers' past choices enhance mitigation potential of reforestation" (10/25 2011)
Journal Highlight of the AGU. "Reforesting northern farmland can have a cooling effect" (08/31 2011)
Editor's highlight of Geophysical Research Letters. "Farmers' past choices enhance mitigation potential of reforestation" (08/02 2011)
BBC World Service. Interview in "Europe Today" (01/27 2011)
Handelsblatt. "Was hat Dschingis Khan mit dem Klimawandel zu tun?" (01/26 2011)
Deutsche Welle. "Historic wars and plagues had little effect on climate, study finds" (01/25 2011)
El Pais. "La conquista de America no influyo en el clima" (01/21 2011)
Nature. "Research Highlights: Biogeochemistry: Preindustrial carbon" (Nature 461, 850, doi: 10.1038/461850e. 10/14 2010)
Deutschlandradio. "Studie: Menschengemachte CO2-Emissionen schon vor der Industrialisierung" (01/26 2010)
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EnvironmentHydrology, Hydrological Processes, Experimental Hydrology, Eco-Hydrology
Archaeology, Environment, Social and behavioural sciencesPrehistoric Archaeology
EnvironmentPhysical oceanography and dynamics of the climate system
Environment, Mathematics and statisticsbiogeochemistry, isotope geochemistry, soil science