updated thesis list

content/event_old/cwd_trends/index.md → content/event/cwd_trends/index.md

@@ -16,15 +16,15 @@ abstract:
 
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-date: 2023-02-21T08:36:01+01:00
-date_end: 2023-02-21T08:36:01+01:00
+date: 2024-02-21T08:36:01+01:00
+date_end: 2024-02-21T08:36:01+01:00
 all_day: true
 
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-publishDate: 2023-02-21T08:36:01+01:00
+publishDate: 2024-02-21T08:36:01+01:00
 
 authors: [Benjamin Stocker]
-tags: [Drought impacts, CMIP, Earth Observation, cumulative water deficit, BSc]
+tags: [Drought impacts, CMIP6, Earth Observation, cumulative water deficit, BSc]
 
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@@ -73,7 +73,9 @@ Droughts have major impacts on fluxes between land and the atmosphere, agricultu
 
 ## Aim
 
-You will target seasonal water deficits as an impact-relevant quantity measuring the severity of droughts. Using outputs from the Climate Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6), you will derive simulated cumulative water deficit (CWD) time series across the globe for multiple models and investigate their long-term trends.
+You will target seasonal water deficits as an impact-relevant quantity measuring the severity of droughts. Using outputs from multiple models of the the Climate Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6), you will derive simulated cumulative water deficit (CWD) time series across the globe and investigate their long-term trends and differences in model projections.
+
+This project builds on a completed BSc thesis and extends its focus to a larger set of model outputs and scenarios. If addressed as a MSc topic, there is a clear possiblity for a publication as a thesis outcome.
 
 ## Requirements
 

content/event/ecosystem_waterbalance/index.md

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+---
+# Documentation: https://wowchemy.com/docs/managing-content/
+
+title: "Bachelor or Master thesis - Ecosystem water balance"
+event:
+event_url:
+location: Institute of Geography, University of Bern
+address:
+  street:
+  city:
+  region:
+  postcode:
+  country:
+summary:
+abstract:
+
+# Talk start and end times.
+#   End time can optionally be hidden by prefixing the line with `#`.
+date: 2024-02-21T08:24:51+01:00
+date_end: 2024-02-21T08:24:51+01:00
+all_day: true
+
+# Schedule page publish date (NOT event date).
+publishDate: 2024-02-21T08:24:51+01:00
+
+authors: [Benjamin Stocker]
+tags: [Extreme event impacts, ET, FLUXNET, BSc, MSc]
+
+# Is this a featured event? (true/false)
+featured: false
+
+# Featured image
+# To use, add an image named `featured.jpg/png` to your page's folder. 
+# Focal points: Smart, Center, TopLeft, Top, TopRight, Left, Right, BottomLeft, Bottom, BottomRight.
+image:
+  caption: "(a) Ecosystems in the AET vs. PET space. (b) Ecosystems in the Bukyko space (AET/P vs. PET/P). Each point represents a site from which flux measurements are available. A selection of sites from which data were used in this and previous chapters are highlighted. AET, PET, and P are multi-year means of annual sums."
+  focal_point: ""
+  preview_only: false
+
+# Custom links (optional).
+#   Uncomment and edit lines below to show custom links.
+# links:
+# - name: Follow
+#   url: https://twitter.com
+#   icon_pack: fab
+#   icon: twitter
+
+# Optional filename of your slides within your event's folder or a URL.
+url_slides:
+
+url_code:
+url_pdf:
+url_video:
+
+# Markdown Slides (optional).
+#   Associate this event with Markdown slides.
+#   Simply enter your slide deck's filename without extension.
+#   E.g. `slides = "example-slides"` references `content/slides/example-slides.md`.
+#   Otherwise, set `slides = ""`.
+slides: ""
+
+# Projects (optional).
+#   Associate this post with one or more of your projects.
+#   Simply enter your project's folder or file name without extension.
+#   E.g. `projects = ["internal-project"]` references `content/project/deep-learning/index.md`.
+#   Otherwise, set `projects = []`.
+projects: []
+---
+
+**Supervision:** Prof. Benjamin Stocker
+
+## Background
+
+Exchange fluxes of water vapour between ecosystems and the atmosphere are commonly measured using eddy-covariance technique. This gives information about how much water is transpired by plants and evaporated from soil and plant surfaces. Such fluxes are measured across a hundreds of sites globally, data is available and regularly used in our group, and interesting patterns emerge. For example, some sites appear to evaporate a large fraction of annual precipitation. Some even more than annual precipitation. This raises important questions: Is this a data artefact? Or are there topographic and hydrological patterns that can explain differences between sites?
+
+## Aim
+
+This thesis will perform data analyses to relate measured annual mean evapotranspiration to site characteristics. Additional data will be prepared for characterising sites in terms of hydrological, topographic, soil, vegetation, and other aspects. The hypothesis to be tested is that sites that exhibit a high ratio of mean annual evapotranspiration over precipitation are located in topographic depressions, where subsurface water flow supplies water for evapotranspiration.
+
+If addressed as a MSc topic, there is a clear possiblity for a publication as a thesis outcome.
+
+## Requirements
+
+- The student is motivated to work with large datasets of the terrestrial biosphere.
+- Experience working with R or other data science tools are an advantage.
+- The student writes the thesis in English.
+
+## Literature
+
+- [Land in the Earth System Chapter Ecohydrology](https://geco-bern.github.io/les/ecohydrology.html)
+- Williams, C. A., Reichstein, M., Buchmann, N., Baldocchi, D., Beer, C., Schwalm, C., Wohlfahrt, G., Hasler, N., Bernhofer, C., Foken, T., Papale, D., Schymanski, S., and Schaefer, K.: Climate and vegetation controls on the surface water balance: Synthesis of evapotranspiration measured across a global network of flux towers, Water Resources Research, 48, https://doi.org/10.1029/2011WR011586, 2012.
+- Thompson, S. E., Harman, C. J., Konings, A. G., Sivapalan, M., Neal, A., and Troch, P. A.: Comparative hydrology across AmeriFlux sites: The variable roles of climate, vegetation, and groundwater, Water Resources Research, 47, https://doi.org/10.1029/2010WR009797, 2011.
+

content/event/frost_gpp/index.md

@@ -16,8 +16,8 @@ abstract:
 
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-date: 2023-02-21T08:24:51+01:00
-date_end: 2023-02-21T08:24:51+01:00
+date: 2024-02-21T08:24:51+01:00
+date_end: 2024-02-21T08:24:51+01:00
 all_day: true
 
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@@ -73,11 +73,12 @@ projects: []
 
 Climate warming is driving an advance of leaf unfolding in trees, promoting longer growing seasons. However, the advance of the start-of-the-season (SOS) can induce *false springs*, i.e., a stretch of unexpectedly warmer temperatures in late winter/early spring followed by sudden freezing events. These frost events after the SOS can affect the structure and function of terrestrial ecosystems and have important environmental and economic consequences. Still, there is little consensus on how frost events change under global warming and the implications. Therefore, it is relevant to understand the occurrence of frost events once the growing season has started and how they change among regions in temperate and boreal forests.
 
-
 ## Aim
 
 The goal of this project is to identify when the frost events happen after the SOS and quantify their impact on carbon fluxes. The student will characterize the SOS using phenological measurements and ecosystem-level photosynthesis (gross primary production, GPP). Daily minimum temperatures will be used to calculate the number of frost events. The project design includes combining ground observations, eddy covariance flux measurements, remote sensing data and global climate datasets.
 
+If addressed as a MSc topic, there is a possiblity for a publication as a thesis outcome.
+
 ## Requirements
 
 - The student is motivated to work with large datasets of the terrestrial biosphere.

content/event/global_biomee/index.md

@@ -16,12 +16,12 @@ abstract:
 
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-date: 2023-02-21T08:38:39+01:00
-date_end: 2023-02-21T08:38:39+01:00
+date: 2024-02-21T08:38:39+01:00
+date_end: 2024-02-21T08:38:39+01:00
 all_day: false
 
 # Schedule page publish date (NOT event date).
-publishDate: 2023-02-21T08:38:39+01:00
+publishDate: 2024-02-21T08:38:39+01:00
 
 authors: [Laura Marqués]
 tags: [growth, tree rings, FLUXNET, MSc]

content/event/gpp_extremes/index.md

@@ -16,14 +16,14 @@ abstract:
 
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-date: 2023-02-21T08:32:52+01:00
-date_end: 2023-02-21T08:32:52+01:00
+date: 2024-02-21T08:32:52+01:00
+date_end: 2024-02-21T08:32:52+01:00
 all_day: true
 
 # Schedule page publish date (NOT event date).
-publishDate: 2023-02-21T08:32:52+01:00
+publishDate: 2024-02-21T08:32:52+01:00
 
-authors: [Pascal Schneider]
+authors: [Benjamin Stocker]
 tags: [FLUXNET, GPP, extreme event impacts, BSc]
 
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@@ -91,5 +91,4 @@ The goal of this project is to quantify the role of GPP extremes on an ecosystem
 
 ## Supervision
 
-- Pascal Schneider
 - Prof. Benjamin Stocker

content/event_old/hires_cwd/index.md → content/event/hires_cwd/index.md

@@ -16,12 +16,12 @@ abstract:
 
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-date: 2023-02-21T08:46:40+01:00
-date_end: 2023-02-21T08:46:40+01:00
+date: 2024-02-21T08:46:40+01:00
+date_end: 2024-02-21T08:46:40+01:00
 all_day: true
 
 # Schedule page publish date (NOT event date).
-publishDate: 2023-02-21T08:46:40+01:00
+publishDate: 2024-02-21T08:46:40+01:00
 
 authors: [Benjamin Stocker]
 tags: [Earth Observation, cumulative water deficit, MSc]
@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ Seasonal water deficits, caused by the imbalance of water from the land surface
 
 ## Aim
 
-Novel data resources now provide analysis-ready data at field-scale resolution. This provides an opportunity to extend the analysis of Stocker et al. (2023) to the hillslope-scale. You will develop a workflow to access cloud-hosted Earth Observation data and perform analyses for deriving cumulative water deficits. This will generate crucial insights for a better understanding of the role of terrain in shaping plant water availability and for informing land managers about the sustainability of water resource use.
+Novel data resources from [OpenET](https://etdata.org/) now provide analysis-ready data at field-scale resolution. This provides an opportunity to extend the analysis of Stocker et al. (2023) to the hillslope-scale. You will develop a workflow to access cloud-hosted Earth Observation data and perform analyses for deriving cumulative water deficits. This will generate crucial insights for a better understanding of the role of terrain in shaping plant water availability and for informing land managers about the sustainability of water resource use.
 
 ## Requirements
 

content/event/sinksource/index.md

@@ -12,8 +12,8 @@ location: Institute of Geography, University of Bern and WSL Birmensdorf
 #   postcode: '94305'
 #   country: United States
 
-summary: Modelling biophysical limits to forest production
-abstract: "Vegetation models underlying climate projections predict that forests will offset a large proportion of human CO2 emissions, but these models omit important biophysical controls of tree growth. Based on a mechanistic vegetation model, you will investigate how to implement such biophysical controls and how these might impact carbon fixation by forests in the future."
+# summary: Modelling biophysical limits to forest production
+# abstract: "Vegetation models underlying climate projections predict that forests will offset a large proportion of human CO2 emissions, but these models omit important biophysical controls of tree growth. Based on a mechanistic vegetation model, you will investigate how to implement such biophysical controls and how these might impact carbon fixation by forests in the future."
 
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@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ abstract: "Vegetation models underlying climate projections predict that forests
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 # Schedule page publish date (NOT talk date).
-publishDate: "2022-12-14T00:00:00Z"
+publishDate: "2024-09-05T00:00:00Z"
 
 authors: [Benjamin Stocker]
 tags: [sink limitation, growth modelling, MSc]
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ projects:
 Click on the **Slides** button above to view the built-in slides feature.
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-**Main supervision:** Prof. Dr. Benjamin Stocker, Dr. Jaideep Joshi
+**Main supervision:** Prof. Dr. Benjamin Stocker
 **Co-supervision:** Dr. Antoine Cabon, WSL Birmensdorf
 
 Forests currently represent a large carbon sink, offsetting a quarter of human CO2 emissions each year, bur large uncertainty remains on the future strength of this sink. Namely, vegetation models assume that tree growth is essentially limited by photosynthesis, but recent evidence suggests that currently unaccounted for biophysical limitations to tree growth by low temperatures and water stress can substantially decouple tree growth from photosynthesis. The degree to which biophysical limitations might slow down forest carbon storage is still unclear but has potentially critical implications for climate projections. 

content/event/topo_veg/index.md

@@ -16,14 +16,14 @@ abstract:
 
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-date: 2023-02-21T08:19:24+01:00
-date_end: 2023-02-21T08:19:24+01:00
+date: 2024-02-21T08:19:24+01:00
+date_end: 2024-02-21T08:19:24+01:00
 all_day: true
 
 # Schedule page publish date (NOT event date).
-publishDate: 2023-02-21T08:19:24+01:00
+publishDate: 2024-02-21T08:19:24+01:00
 
-authors: [Koen Hufkens]
+authors: [Benjamin Stocker]
 tags: [topography, Earth Observation, MSc, BSc]
 
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@@ -75,7 +75,6 @@ We call on students to determine the importance of topographic and soil factors
 
 *Above: Images from Fan et al., 2019 https://doi.org/10.1029/2018WR023903, (a) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_riparian; (b) GoogleEarth; (c) photo by Andrew Plumptre/WCS, https://news.mongabay.com/2014/11/mapping‐mistake‐leaves‐wildlife‐at‐risk/; (d) http://wikimapia.org/8582923/Pantanal‐Mato‐Grossense‐NationalPark*
 
-
 Topographic features induce strong differences in the local micro-climate due to varying degrees of water availability (drainage) and insolation. Although these patterns are intuitive and readily visible in the landscape they are not considered in vegetation modelling due to scale issues. As a first step in improving vegetation modelling a deeper understanding of these patterns is required.
 
 We invite students to model remote sensing based metrics of vegetation responses (e.g. vegetation greenness) in relation to different topographic predictors. There will be a strong focus on both the scientific component as well as the implementation, for which students will be required to use the Microsoft Planetary Computer.