C-PEAT working group newsletter - February 2023
The Carbon in Peat on Earth through Time (C-PEAT) working group has shared some news and opportunities.
Received via C-PEAT mailing list on 07 February 2023.
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(1) C-PEAT 2023 Workshop
Here it is, at last! This year's workshop will be held simultaneously on May 8-12 in 3 different locations ("hubs"): Indonesia, Poland, USA. We are in the process of developing a more detailed agenda and inviting guest speakers. The agenda will be shared by all 3 hubs and there will be 1 daily session (2 hours) where the 3 hubs will be "live" together. Day 1 will focus on tropical peatlands. Days 2-3 will focus on recent (past ~100 years) of peat accumulation. Day 4 will be a recap of C-PEAT's work thus far (we've been around for almost a decade already!) and we will also pick your brain about a strategy/research agenda for the years to come. Day 5 will be a field trip. During days 1-2-3, you can expect a mix of guest talks, group exercises, and focused work towards manuscript ideas, figures, and/or text. We will soon send a formal invitation for you to sign up for in-person or remote participation. For now, save those dates if you wish to take part in this workshop!! Our funds will cover lodging and food, and we have limited funding for transportation (priority will be given to early-career and/or developing-country scientists). We are receiving funding from NSF, PAGES, INQUA, and IGCP.
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(2) C-PEAT Paleo Peat Proxy database
Thanks to every data contributor thus far! Our data steward (Nicole Sanderson) and her team have been busy compiling your datasets. Nicole presented a poster at AGU to show the team's progress thus far; a manuscript is also in preparation. If you happen to have datasets that you haven't had a chance to share yet, you can still do so until February 28th 2023.
(3) PhD opportunity at McGill / University of Montreal (Canada)
We are looking for a talented student with interests in ecosystem greenhouse gas balance, soil biogeochemistry, peatland ecology, and Canada’s northern permafrost region. The project will focus on the use of eddy covariance techniques to assess the greenhouse gas and energy balances of northern permafrost peatlands affected by wildfire. Field research will be conducted in the southern Northwest Territories (Scotty Creek, destroyed by a late-season wildfire in October 2022, scheduled to be rebuilt in March 2023), supported by the Woodwell Climate Research Center through the Permafrost Pathways project. Details here:
https://atmosbios.com/opportunities/.
(4) Call for peat core data for global peatland prediction project
Jade Skye is a Master’s student with the University of Victoria (Victoria, BC, Canada), supervised by Dr. Joe Melton (Environment and Climate Change Canada). Her project aims to produce a global map of predicted peatland depth and carbon storage values using a Machine Learning (ML) based approach. The goals of this project are two-fold. First, to generate an estimate of the amount of carbon sequestered in peatland soils globally. The second goal is to aid efforts to better represent peatlands in Earth System Models by providing more accurate initial conditions. As part of this initiative, Jade is looking to gather a large amount of data to train the ML model. She is also interested in collaborating more broadly with anyone interested in the project. Jade will work with all data providers to ensure their data is used in accordance with their requirements with regard to publishing and further distribution and will not distribute any provided data without the express permission of the collaborator. The requested peat core data includes: basal peat depth, peat carbon density, and dry bulk density. To keep the data processing as streamlined as possible, it is preferred for data to be in a CSV format with units (preferably SI) explicitly listed for all variables (including explicit latitude and longitude for each core). An initial soft deadline is set for April 1st, 2023. To contribute or for further questions please contact Jade at jskye@uvic.ca.
(5) A new publication to read
Check out this new paper: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2022JG006910