Article**: Oceans and Wetlands.
Wetlands are an effective means of storing large amounts of carbon, which can be conserved underwater。Oceanwetlands notes that in early February 2024, it was reported that the University of Copenhagen's newly established Global Wetlands Center was embarking on a compelling research program aimed at delving into the mysteries of the Earth's wetlands and providing humanity with critical knowledge about the greenhouse gas budgets in these regions. The centre will help to understand how carbon from plants and trees can be captured in wetlands such as swamps and preserved like the ancient mire carcasses found there.
Photo: Linda Green Club Fusion Media · Oceanwetlands.
Peat bogs store twice as much carbon dioxide as all forests globally. Over the next six years, the research center will conduct in-depth research on wetlands and their potential for local change, in collaboration with the Department of Computer Science (UCPH), GEUS and DHI, with a grant of DKK 60 million from Novo Nordsk**.
Wetlands are one of the natural means of preventing climate change due to their strong carbon capture capacity. Like forests, trees and plants in wetlands absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However, unlike vegetation decomposition on the forest floor, plants that fall into wetlands can be flooded. Wetlands are unique in their ability to consistently extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere due to the ability of water to block oxygen from the atmosphere. It also means that wetlands are able to store carbon removal for many years. For example, although peat bogs cover about 3% of the Earth's land area, they store twice as much carbon as all the world's forests. This fact has gradually attracted the attention of researchers and policymakers, and has received special attention at this year's World Wetlands Day to highlight the important role of wetlands in protecting nature and biodiversity.
Photo: Linda Green Club Fusion Media · Oceanwetlands.
Despite the wide variety of wetlands, overall, protecting natural wetlands provides a significant net benefit to the GHG budget. However, there are also negative factors in wetlands, among which the production of methane and nitric oxide needs further in-depth research. Therefore, it is key for the Global Wetlands Centre to develop models for studying this phenomenon in order to be able to account for local differences, such as the role of the water table in the tropics, tundra, coastal or inland, and to be able to detect commonalities in these differences. One of the main tasks of the Centre is to gather local knowledge about wetlands around the world.
In addition, in places with high nitrogen levels, a lack of oxygen may lead to the production of nitric oxide, an important greenhouse gas. This can happen in fertilized rice fields or wetlands that get nitrogen from nearby farms.
It is reported that the researchers will conduct experiments in various wetlands in Vietnam, Tanzania and Norway, focusing on two consequences:
1.How do changes in wetlands and their environmental conditions affect greenhouse gas budgets for emissions and removal of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitric oxide (N2O)?
2.What is the impact on the residents of each region? For example, how does the status quo or a particular management scenario affect the harvest?
One of the goals of the Global Wetlands Center is to ensure that research findings are not shelved, but can be communicated quickly to decision-makers. This is one of the reasons why the project focuses on case study experiments.
According to reports, this research will help humans better understand the significance of wetlands to the earth's climate, and use satellite imagery and other means to accurately map global wetlands. "Once these models can be accurately resolved, we hope they will be able to map the distribution of wetlands around the world with satellite imagery and better understand the impact of these places on our planet's climate." The image resolution is now much higher than it was five years ago, which gives us opportunities that were unimaginable before."
However, to achieve this, it is not enough to study wetlands from the air, scientists need to go down to the field to conduct field studies, as the knowledge of wetlands is still very limited in many places, especially in less studied wetland areas outside of Europe and North America.
Oceanwetlands visited the University of Copenhagen's website and learned that the Global Wetland Center is committed to designing novel approaches to modeling greenhouse gas budgets in wetlands to guide wetland management. This will enable wetlands to contribute to the global goal of climate neutrality. In terms of wetland management, the Centre hopes that through these approaches, the impact of wetlands on the global agenda for climate neutrality will be more effective.
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