Category Archives: Science

The energy balance of a leaf

Posted on May 12, 2022 by lembrechtsjonas

I am currently co-teaching the course on ‘environmental biophysics’ to our ecology masters, a largely theoretical course in which students get to know the physical equations behind ecology and the interaction between organisms and their environment. Besides this formula-juggling, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Science | Tagged Biophysics, climate change, Ecology, Microclimate, Plants, Practicum, Teaching, Temperature | Leave a comment

What microclimate sensor to use?

Posted on April 25, 2022 by lembrechtsjonas

I often get the question what microclimate sensor I would recommend. To facilitate my answer to that, I decided to summarize my ideas on the matter here. Note that this is a far from exhaustive musing on the different factors … Continue reading →

Posted in Science | Tagged Climate, climate change, Microclimate, Nature, Outdoors, Sensors, technology | Leave a comment

What we know about snow

Posted on February 21, 2022 by lembrechtsjonas

We’re going to have to talk about snow. Snow is fabulous, it is unique, it is beautiful. But it also turns ecological processes and principles on their head: snow accumulation determines ground temperature, light conditions and moisture availability during winter. … Continue reading →

Posted in Science | Tagged arctic, Ecology, Mountains, Nature, Outdoors, Snow, Winter | 1 Comment

One protocol to track them all

Posted on February 15, 2022 by lembrechtsjonas

It was the year 2005. A group of mountain ecologists gathered in Vienna, Austria, for what would turn out to be an appointment with history. Their topic? Plant invasions in mountains! A consensus was soon reached that there was an … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Science | Tagged climate change, Ecology, Global change, Invasive species, Mountain ecology, Mountains, Nature, Outdoors | Leave a comment

Global maps of soil temperature

Posted on January 3, 2022 by lembrechtsjonas

In a new paper just published in Global Change Biology, we provide the first-ever global maps of soil temperature (0 -15 cm) at a 1 km² resolution, based on the global SoilTemp database of over 8500 in-situ soil temperature time … Continue reading →

Posted in Science | Tagged Climate, climate change, Ecology, Global maps, Microclimate, Nature, Science, Soils, Temperature | 4 Comments

Forests: buffers for temperature in the future?

Posted on November 10, 2021 by lembrechtsjonas

Even if you followed this webspace only occasionally, you should have gotten the idea of the fact that we are starting to get a good hold of microclimate across the globe. We know how much European forest understories differ from … Continue reading →