Edward Matthew Comyn-platt

Biography

Edward is primarily interested in the biogeochemistry of the JULES land surface model. He is currently involved in a number of projects which look at a number of the emission schemes in JULES, and how well they reproduce observations. These include: Improving estimates of CO2, CH4 and N2O uptake and emission over the UK as part of the UK-GREENHOUSE project. This project is part of the UK's international requirement to provide accurate estimates of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions in accordance with the UN Kyoto protocol. This work involves running JULES with various additions such as ECOSSE for soil nitrogen and DALEC for current land-use and vegetation state; Investigating methane emissions from wetlands and comparing JULES estimates with satellite observations (GOSAT and SCIAMACHY) on both a global and regional scale as part of the ALANIS and JULES-NC projects. Wetland emissions of methane are a huge unknown in current estimates of GHG emissions and given the climatic response of wetland extent are of significance when making long term predictions. This work demonstrates significant improvement of the JULES system in both estimating the wetland extent and the rate at which methanogensis occurs. Comparing biogenic volatile organic compound (BVOC) emission estimates form JULES with satellite observations of formaldehyde (GOME-2) and with output from the EMEP4UK model. BVOC emissions are poorly understood and many models use very simplified schemes. Given the huge advances in observation techniques, particularly from satellite platforms, we intend to improve these schemes by understanding the climatic response BVOC emissions.

Research Interest

Biogeochemistry