field and mountain in arizona

Confronting Ecosystem Models with Experiments: Data Assimilation

Overview Using a technique called data-assimilation, we can inform existing ecosystem models with measurements from field experiments. In combination with meta-analysis, this approach becomes a powerful statistical tool to improve our predictions of ecosystem responses to global change. We recently used data-assimilation to study the effect of warming and CO2 enrichment on Read more…

Artist's rendering of the Carbon locked up inside a plant's roots.

Meta-Analysis

Overview Over the past several decades, scientists have conducted hundreds of experiments investigating responses of ecosystems to global environmental change. Ecoss synthesizes many of these responses using a statistical technique called meta-analysis. This approach considers all the measurements together and quantifies the overall response, testing whether responses vary among ecosystems, Read more…

Permafrost Carbon Network Logo showing the north portion of the globe in red, yellow and orange.

Global Change Synthesis

Permafrost Carbon Network Logo showing the north portion of the globe in red, yellow and orange.

Permafrost Carbon Network

Thousands of researchers worldwide are studying how global change affects ecosystems. Using models and field experiments, they add to our understanding of this area each day. However, individual studies sometimes only tell part of the whole story. By combining results from large numbers of studies, we can discern large-scale patterns across ecosystems, and make better estimates of how global change will affect our environment. Our work on global change synthesis combines several statistical techniques with modeling approaches. (more…)