PhD position in physical geography within the topic: Landscape partitioning and lability mapping of soil organic matter in permafrost terrain.
The Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology (INK) is one of the major departments within the Faculty of Science at Stockholm University. The department has approximately 120 employees and educates approximately 1500 students annually. Education is oriented towards geography, earth sciences, geosciences and environmental protection. The main research disciplines are Ecological Geography, Geomorphology and Paleoglaciology, Glaciology, Hydrology, Paleoclimatology, Quaternary Geology, Remote Sensing and GIS, and Tropical Geography.
Project description
We seek to recruit a candidate for a PhD position in the assessment of the Nordic permafrost carbon pool. This PhD fellowship will investigate total storage, landscape and soil horizon partitioning, age and potential decomposability of soil organic matter (SOM) at Nordic study sites characterized by a gradient in ground conditions, from isolated to continuous permafrost. Special attention will be paid to characterizing, defining and mapping soil lability classes across the landscape and the different field sites. Quantity and quality of SOM will be linked to periglacial processes investigated at the same sites. Field sites include Svalbard, Greenland and N-Sweden. The new soil carbon data will represent an important contribution to the Northern Circumpolar Soil Carbon Database (NCSCD).
The PhD fellowship contributes to the DEFROST project (www.ncoe-defrost.org/), which is part of the Norden Top-level Research Initiative aiming to strengthen research and innovation regarding climate change issues in the Nordic Region as one of the three Nordic Centres of Excellence that are funded within the sub-programme "Interactions between climate change and the cryosphere". The aim of DEFROST is to understand how climate change induced changes in the cryosphere influence the ecosystem/geosphere processes which directly affect climate. The project focuses on key terrestrial, lacustrine and marine cryospheric components that have the potential for giving rise to substantial changes in climate feedback mechanisms both in terms of surface-atmosphere energy exchange and exchanges of greenhouse gases. DEFROST seeks to bridge existing gaps between climate modeling, cryospheric science, and Arctic ecosystem science.
PhD position in Physical Geography
