New 10 million euro research center on global warming will use eLTER sites and data

The German Research Foundation (DFG) is establishing a new Collaborative Research Centre (CRC). In the CRC “Regional Climate Change: The Role of Land Use and Water Management”, researchers are investigating the hypothesis that human-induced land use change and intensified water management also influence regional climate – leading to unintended changes in the natural regional water and energy cycle.

Phenomena such as droughts or increasing precipitation are attributed to global warming and the natural variability of the climate system. However, current climate models cannot adequately explain these observations. In this Center, use will be made of eLTER sites in informing models and running experimental studies.

The Center is jointly run by the University of Bonn and the Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH and is coordinated by Prof. Jürgen Kusche, University of Bonn. The Center will run for the next four years with an option for continuing beyond that. The total funding for the Center is about 10 million euros.