Professor Emanuel Gloor

Profile

Present Position

  • Professor in Biogeochemical Cycling, School of Geography, and Priestley International Climate Centre, University of Leeds

I am a Professor in Biogeochemical Cycles. My interest is in documenting and understanding large-scale (continental to global) interactions and changes of the coupled carbon cycle climate system over time-scales relevant to us today. Over the past decade my research has been focussed on tropics and particularly Amazonian tropical forests. 

Scientific approaches are quite varied.  

One strand of investigation includes interpretation of atmospheric greenhouse gas patterns with various modelling tools including inverse models of atmospheric transport. In support of this approach together with colleagues from Brazil, USA and the Netherlands (Luciana V Gatti, John Miller, Wouter Peters) I have helped establish a lower troposphere greenhouse measurement program above the Amazon basin.  Amazonia is an important component of both the global climate system and the global carbon cycle. This is because it hosts one of the largest 'labile' carbon pools - the humid forests. Another strand of investigation uses isotopes in tree rings as archives of hydrological cycling via oxygen isotopes in cellulose and physiological responses of tree growth via carbon isotopes in cellulose. This work is in collaboration with Roel Brienen. Finally, I am involved in forest site in situ measurements of forest functioning in regions of the tropics which are warming particularly rapidly (Amazon and Western Ghats) using a continuous monitoring approach complemented by a hydraulic and heat resistance traits approach. This work is in close collaboration with David Galbraith and Oliver Phillips.

Experience

  • Study of Physics, ETH, Zürich, Switzerland 
  • PhD, Natural Sciences, ETH, Zürich, Switzerland 
  • Post-Doctoral Student, Princeton University, USA
  • Senior Scientist Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany

Research Tools

  • Atmospheric greenhouse gas measurements
  • Tree ring measurements, including isotopes
  • Geophysical models of atmospheric transport and climate
  • Forest and vegetation ecophysiological measurements 

Selected recent publications 

  • Recent intensification of Amazon flooding extremes driven by strengthened Walker circulation, Jonathan Barichivich, Emanuel Gloor, Philippe Peylin, Roel Brienen, Jochen Schoengart, J.C. Espinoza, & K.C. Pattnayak (2018) Science Advances
  • Differences in leaf thermoregulation and water use strategies between three co?occurring Atlantic forest tree species. Fauset S, Freitas HC, Galbraith DR, .., M. Gloor  (2017)  Plant Cell Environ. 2018;1–14.

  • Large emissions from floodplain trees close the Amazon methane budget, Sunitha R. Pangala, Alex Enrich-Prast, Luana S. Basso, Roberta Bittencourt Peixoto, David Bastviken, Edward Hornibrook, Luciana V. Gatti, Humberto Marotta Ribeiro, Wanderley Rodrigues Bastos, Olaf Malm, Emanuel Gloor, John Miller, Vincent Gauci (2017) Nature 552, 230–234, doi:10.1038/nature24639

  • Questioning the Influence of Sunspots on Amazon Hydrology: Even a Broken Clock Tells the Right Time Twice a Day (2018) J. C. A. Baker, M. Gloor , A. Boom , D. A. Neill , B. B. L. Cintra , S. J. Clerici, and R. J. W. Brienen, Geophys. Res. Lett., doi: 10.1002/2017GL076889

  • Long-term decline of the Amazon carbon sink (2015) Brienen, Phillips, Feldpausch, Gloor, Galbraith et al., Nature 519, 344–348 doi:10.1038/nature14283

  • Oxygen isotopes in tree rings are a good proxy for Amazon precipitation and ENSO variability (2012), Roel J.W. Brienen, G. Helle, T. L. Pons, J.-L. Guyot, M. Gloor, PNAS, 109,109(42), 16957-16962, 10.1073/pnas.1205977109

  • Drought sensitivity of Amazonian carbon balance revealed by atmospheric measurements, L. V. Gatti, M. Gloor, J. B. Miller,  C. E. Doughty, Y. Malhi, L. G. Domingues, L.S. Basso, A. Martinewski, C. S. C. Correia, V. F. Borges, S. Freitas, R. Braz, L. O. Anderson, H. Rocha, J. Grace, O. L. Phillips and J. Lloyd (2014) Nature, 506, 76-80

  • Pervasive Rise of small-scale Deforestation in Amazonia, M. Kalamandeen, E. Gloor, E. Mitchard, D. Quincey, G. Ziv, D. Spracklen, B. Spracklen, M. Adami, L. E. C. Aragao & D. Galbraith, Scientific Reports, 8, Article no. 1600,   doi:10.1038/s41598-018-19358-2

Current Grants 

  • MOYA Global CH4 Budget  - NERC consortium led by E. Nisbet
  • BIO-RED (Biomes of Brasil – Resilience, Recovery, and Diversity) - NERC consortium led by Oliver Phillips and myself 
  • NERC IOF India ( Towards an Indian observatory of tropical forest response to climate change) led by myself and David Galbraith - collaboration with Indu K Murty, Deepak Barua, Mahesh Sankaran, Jayashree Ratnam
  • ISOAM (Testing novel isotope approaches to reconstruct past precipitation regimes in the Amazon) - led by Roel Brienen
  • ASICA  ERC grant led by Wouter Peters (Heat and drought responses of Amazon humid forests measured via atmospheric CO2, CH4, and theri various isotopes)
  • CARBAM Amazon Greenhouse Gas Balances Consortium - FAPESP grant led by Luciana V. Gatti (includes Joe Berry, Scott Denning, Steve Wofsy, John Miller, Wouter Peters)
  • TREMOR (Mechanism and consequences of increasing Tree Mortality in Amazonian forests)

Awards & Honours

  • Editor Citation Excellence in reviewing, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, American Geophysical Union, 2006; Visiting Fellow, Princeton University, Jul-Sep, 2006
  • Visiting Fellow, CIRES (Joint Institute University of Colorado and NOAA), 2014 (top ranked);
  • Bolsa Sciencia sem Fronteiras, advanced fellowship, 2014-1016
  • NOAA (USA) best paper award 2017 for Gatti, Gloor, Miller et al. Nature, 2014
  • Letter recognizing valuable collaboration from the Director of the Institute of Forest, Krasnojarsk, Russian Academy of Sciences, Prof. E. Vaganov on occasion of the institute's 60th birthday.
  • Regular reviewer in all major journals of the field (Science, Nature, Nature Climate Change etc.)

Synergistic Activities

  • Organiser / co-organiser of various workshops (please see  https://ecophysiologyindia.wordpress.com for the most recent workshop in Western Ghats, India)
  • Organizer of various collaborative projects with Brazil and India

Graduate and Postdoctoral Advisors

  • D. Imboden, A. Wuest, EAWAG/ETH Zurich PhD advisors.
  • J.L. Sarmiento & S. Pacala, Princeton University Postdoctoral Advisors.

Collaborators

L. V. Gatti (USP Brazial), Deepak Barua (IISER, Pune India), Sophie Fauset (University of Plymouth), Martyn Chipperfield (Leeds), Dominick Spracklen (Leeds), P. Peylin (IPSL, France), J. Barichivich (IPSL, France), Indu Murthy (Institute of Science, Bangalore), Mahesh Sankaran and Jayashree Ratnam (NCBS, Bangalore), BenHur and Beatriz Marimon (UNEMAT, Mato Grosso, Brazil), Chico Cruz (USP, Sao Paulo), Gregorio Ceccantini (USP, Brazil), Wolfgang Buermann (University of Augsburg), Mauricio Mencuccini (Barcelona)

<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>

Student education

I am currently co-teaching the following courses

  • Global Environmental Cycles
  • Climate Systems

Current PhD students

  • Bruno Barcante l'Advocaat (with Roel Brienen),
  • Julia Tavares (with David Galbraith and Oliver Phillips),
  • Alex Chambers-Ostler (with Roel Brienen and David Galbraith),
  • Rakesh Tiwari (with David Galbraith and Christine Foyer),
  • Georgina Werkmeister (with David Galbraith),
  • Emma Docherty (with David Galbraith)
  • Peter Joyce (with Roel Brienen and Martyn Chipperfield)

Research groups and institutes

  • Ecology and Global Change
<h4>Postgraduate research opportunities</h4> <p>We welcome enquiries from motivated and qualified applicants from all around the world who are interested in PhD study. Our <a href="https://phd.leeds.ac.uk">research opportunities</a> allow you to search for projects and scholarships.</p>
Projects
    <li><a href="//phd.leeds.ac.uk/project/1068-the-fate-of-forests-on-a-warming-planet:-assessing-climate-sensitivity-of-tree-species-using-tree-rings">The fate of forests on a warming planet: assessing climate sensitivity of tree species using tree rings</a></li> <li><a href="//phd.leeds.ac.uk/project/1910-understanding-and-predicting-sensitivity-of-amazonia&rsquo;s-forests-to-increasing-heat-and-drought-">Understanding and predicting sensitivity of Amazonia&rsquo;s forests to increasing heat and drought </a></li>