Simone Maria Stuenzi

I study the interactions between boreal forests, permafrost, and the atmosphere, and how these ecosystems respond to a warming climate.

A large portion of the global permafrost area is forested, and boreal forests in permafrost regions make up around one-third of the global forest cover. The canopy insulates the ground: through shading, changes to surface albedo, snow interception, and the accumulation of an organic layer, it partly decouples the soil from the warming air above. This insulation helps preserve the large carbon stocks held in frozen soils. Climate warming, wildfire, drought and logging are changing forest structure and composition, and as the canopy changes, so does the protection it provides.

My work quantifies how much protection the forest offers, and how quickly it can be lost. Using the CryoGrid permafrost model with an explicit multilayer canopy, I have examined how ground insulation depends on forest density and composition, how it responds to disturbance, and how it affects the timing of permafrost degradation.

I combine process-based numerical modelling with optical remote sensing and field observations, with fieldwork in Canada, Greenland, Mongolia, and formerly in Siberia. I am currently building a Junior Research Group on Ecological Novelty in the Department of Conservation Biology at the University of Göttingen, where we study how climate change and disturbance push boreal and Arctic ecosystems into novel states, through shrubification, thermokarst, shifting fire regimes and altered carbon cycling.

Research interests and methods:

  • Vegetation-permafrost coupling
  • Land–atmosphere interactions in boreal and Arctic environments
  • Process-based permafrost modelling (CryoGrid)
  • Disturbance and high-latitude ecosystem transitions
  • Permafrost carbon feedbacks
  • Optical remote sensing and satellite time-series analysis
Picture Simone Maria Stuenzi