The Earth surface is continuously exchanging mass and energy with the lower atmosphere, influencing its characteristics. Vegetation, in particular, plays a fundamental role in global biogeochemical cycles, actively exchanging carbon (photosynthesis and respiration) and water (evapotranspiration) with the surrounding atmosphere. Indeed, vegetated ecosystems, are estimated to uptake every year about 30% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, but the role played by different ecosystems and their response to a changing climate are still unclear. In this context, the long-term monitoring of fluxes at the field scale, applying the eddy covariance (EC) method, is essential to increase the understanding of plant-atmosphere interactions. The PhD candidate will be involved in the management and operation of an EC station located in an agricultural area (vineyards) in the Adige Valley, which was deployed in the framework of the Euregio project INTERFACE. She/he will analyze data collected at this and other EC sites, to assess the carbon and water budgets of ecosystems in the Alpine area of Trentino-South Tyrol, studying the variability between sites and the dependence on meteorological drivers, but also addressing issues related to the application of EC in complex terrain. Results will be useful to quantify the role of agricultural and forest ecosystems in the global carbon budget and increase the efficiency of water management in agriculture in a changing climate.

The candidate should be interested in understanding the biophysical processes at the base of ecosystem functioning in relation to environmental drivers, including turbulent transport of mass and energy in the lower atmosphere. The study of plant-atmosphere interactions is a multidisciplinary topic, so the background of the candidate could be either in atmospheric, environmental, agricultural, or forest science. Good knowledge of either plant physiology, micrometeorology, or agrometeorology is desirable, as well as basic skills in the analysis of large datasets with a programming language (e.g. R, Python).

The PhD student will be part of the Atmospheric Physics Group of the University of Trento. Research interests are mainly on the dynamics of the atmosphere and climate over mountainous regions, including the use of numerical weather prediction models and atmospheric measurement systems, and the analysis of collected data. The results of research are applied in various fields (e.g. air quality, evaluation of renewable energy resources, support to agriculture). The candidate will be enrolled at the Center Agriculture, Food, Environment (C3A), that conducts teaching and research activities in the areas of agriculture, food products and the environment, including climate change impacts on these.