Tropical Peatlands and the Carbon Cycle (TroPeaCC) is a European Research Council funded project that aims to increase our understanding of tropical peatland functioning and in projecting its response to climate change to better safeguard this essential natural resource.
The project is based at the University of Exeter, UK, with collaborators around the world. Meet the team here.
The over-arching aim of the project is to understand how the radiative balance of tropical peatlands is likely to change in the future, taking into account changes in the extent of peatlands, in carbon accumulation (or the CO2 sink) and in methane emissions.
We address four specific research questions through field data collection (see Sites) and modelling:
Q1) What controls the geographical distribution of peatlands in the tropics?
Q2) How large is the tropical peatland CO2 sink and what are its main climatic drivers?
Q3) How large is the methane flux in tropical peatlands? What are the main controls at the
intercontinental scale?
Q4) What is the overall carbon balance of tropical peatlands and how will this change in the future?
