Greenhouse Gas Modeling
In 2022, I transferred from Upstate Medical to the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF). I recognized that climate change was on the forefront of my concerns, and I wanted to shift my career back to environmental health, rather than focus on human health in a medical setting. This lead me to join a lab that studied and modeled greenhouse gas emissions, namely from wetlands.
Wetlands emit about 30% of global methane, yet they are immensely valuable ecosystems worth preserving for their diversity hotspots, flood mitigation, food and water provisions, beauty and recreation, and carbon dioxide sequestration. This duality makes them pertinent for research and preservation. From 2022 to 2026, I measured greenhouse gas fluxes using chambers and infrared gas analyzers across varying environmental and temporal dynamics. With the field data I collected, I validated my 3D mechanistic model called ecosys, which I used to simulate carbon dioxide and methane emissions over time.
As a result, my PhD dissertation is separated into three chapters:
1. Understanding how changing water levels and flooding status drives carbon dioxide and methane fluxes (currently published)
2. Using ecosys to model carbon fluxes up to present day and simulating fluxes at a sub-grid spatial scale that incorporates vegetation heterogeneity
3. Simulating microbial activity from a freshwater marsh using ecosys and validating the model with a novel zero resistance ammetry (ZRA) method for measuring microbe activity
In addition to taking field measurements and modeling greenhouse gases, I built eddy covariance towers for long term carbon flux measurements, and I was involved in outreach programs: I helped create a 3-day program to teach high schoolers and local groups about climate change, the carbon cycle, and greenhouse gas emissions.
