Institute of Soil Science
Students from the University of Copenhagen gain insight into permafrost research at Universität Hamburg
17 September 2024, by Christina Steffens
Photo: UHH/C.Steffens
Research-based education is a win-win situation for both sides, for students and researchers alike. Student groups collect a wealth of additional data in a short period of time, which is enriching for research projects. This in turn motivates the students, they learn better from concrete research questions, and at the same time collect important data for the research projects, which is then actually used by the researchers. The MOMENT (BMBF-funded) and CLICCS (DFG-funded) projects were able to benefit from research-based education in Greenland this summer - and do some advertising on their own behalf.
At the end of August 2024, 14 Master's students from the Geography and Geoinformatics and Climate Change programmes at the University of Copenhagen went on an excursion to Disko Island in West Greenland under the direction of Prof. Dr. Bo Elberling, Prof. Dr. Thorbjørn Joest Andersen and Dr. Peiyan Wang. Among other things, they learned how to address Arctic soils according to the international soil classification system “World Reference Base for Soil Resources” as well as how to carry out greenhouse gas flux measurements in-situ and in laboratory incubation studies. In addition to the lecturers from the University of Copenhagen, Prof. Dr. Lars Kutzbach and Dr. Claudia Fiencke from the Institute of Soil Science, University of Hamburg, were also involved as co-instructors.
Photo: UHH/C.Steffens
Kutzbach and Fiencke introduced the students to the objectives, questions and content of the two research projects MOMENT and CLICCS and showed them the different field installations of both projects. They guided the students in the evaluation of the measured greenhouse gas fluxes and discussed with them to the various uncertainty factors to be taken into account in the interpretation of the recorded data.
Transect 1 of the MOMENT project served as the study site for the student training. This transect runs vertically along a U-shaped slope in Blæsedalen down to a lake and thus along a hydrological gradient. Depending on the prevailing moisture conditions, different soil types have developed on the volcanic rock-rich glacigenic sediments at different locations along the transect.
The highlight was an adventurous research trip to the glacier forefield on the basalt plateau mountains (Lyngmarksfjell) on Disko Island. Kutzbach led the students and lecturers from the University of Copenhagen onto the plateau. Together, they installed soil rings on the soil surface directly in the glacier forefield with initial soil formation and carried out the first methane flux measurements. The soil rings then remained on site in order to record the dynamics of greenhouse gas production at these sites with initial soil formation - where the eternal ice is just disappearing – until the next spring and in the hope of follow-up projects.
