Start of the field campaign
The first project meeting of the Carbon-4D project took place between the 7th and 10th of September in the Fichtel Mountains. We installed profile probes for soil temperature and moisture measurements. From now on, the 15 soil probes will be moved every four weeks to measure at several different sites. Furthermore, we perform chamber measurements and analyses soil cores. The measured data will be used for the development of a 4D model for the mineralization of soil organic carbon on a landscape scale.
Fieldwork in the snowy Fichtel Mountains
Measurements in the Carbon4D project are in full swing and will continue until the end of 2022. Every week, the team from the University of Bayreuth takes 3 cores in the study area to quantify the mineralization of soil organic carbon. Each month, the team from the University of Münster relocates all profile probes to measure soil temperature and moisture. In the picture gallery you can see some impressions of the field work in the snowy Fichtel Mountains.
Project meeting
Our second project meeting of the Carbon-4D project took place in the Fichtelgebirge on October 7. Together with the Soil Ecology of the University of Bayreuth, the current status of the project and initial results were discussed. The measurements of soil temperature and moisture have been running since September 2021 and will continue until December this year.
Fieldwork in the Carbon4D project is completed
In the last 15 month, we measured the soil temperature and the soil moisture at 250 different locations in our 20 x 20 km large study area in the Fichtel Mountains. At each location the measurement duration was one week or one month. Thus, we now have a dataset with measurements at different locations (forest sites, meadows, and fields) under a variety of meteorological conditions. Now we want to use the data set to model the soil temperature and the soil moisture in the study area continuously in 4D, i.e., for each location, the entire time span, and every soil depth. Moreover, at the half of all plots, soil cores were taken to determine the soil respiration in depth. Thereby we want to investigate the drivers for the CO2-emissions of microorganisms. Additionally, a 4D model of the soil respiration within the study area should be created.
