New research: Warmer springs lead to reduced plant growth in summer and autumn
Plants start growing earlier in the spring but contrary to popular belief, this results in considerably less photosynthesis throughout the following summer and autumn. This is shown in a study published by Nature from Wolfgang Buermann, Matthias Forkel, Andrew Richardson and colleagues.
(2018-10-03).
About
Matthias Forkel is an environmental scientist who uses satellite observations to study how climate affects ecosystems and vice versa. Thereby Matthias develops and applies remote sensing methods, global ecosystem models, and machine learning approaches. He is a PostDoc in the Climate and Environmental Remote Sensing Group at TU Wien.
News
June 2019 | New publication
We show how changes in climate, human population and vegetation contribute to changes in global fire occurrence in a newly published paper.
May 2019 | Living Planet Symposium
Matthias will present Constraining Dynamic Global Vegetation Models With Multiple Satellite Observations at the Living Planet Symposium of the European Space Agency in Milan, Italy.
May 2019 | New papers in discussion
A new global long-term vegetation dataset from microwave satellites 1988-2018 now in discussion at Earth System Science Data.
Improving a global vegetation-fire model with satellite observations in discussions at Geoscientific Model Development.
Apr 2019 | EGU
At the General Assembly of the European Geoscience Union, Matthias co-convenes the following sessions:
BG2.48 Global Earth observation for improved understanding of terrestrial ecosystem dynamics
BG2.12 Constraining present and future global vegetation dynamics and carbon stocks
Matthias will present two posters on model-data integration (12. Apr 10:45-12:30 A.417 ) and fire (12. Apr 14:00-15:45 A.319 ).
Feb 2019 | Dreiländertagung
Matthias will present how satellite observations can be used to improve climate-vegetation models at the German-Austrian-Swiss conference for Photogrammetry, Remote Sensind and Geoinformation:
Fernerkundung für Globale Klima-Vegetationsmodelle
Jan 2019 | New paper
Global fire models underestimate the variability of burned area because they misrepresent the effects of plant productivity on fuel production:
Forkel et al. (2019) Biogeosciences.
Dec 2018 | AGU Fall Meeting
Matthias will give talks on Monitoring photosynthesis with microwave satellites (Irene's work) and Diverse responses of wildfire burned area to the widespread greening of the Earth
Nov 2018 | England science tour
Matthias gave seminars on how to use Earth Observation data to improve global ecosystem models at the University of Birmingham (2018-11-01), University of Exeter (2018-11-07), and at the Imperial College London (2018-11-08).
Watch the presentation recorded at Imperial
Oct 2018 | Best Paper Award
Our paper "A data-driven approach to identify controls on global fire activity from satellite and climate observations (SOFIA V1)" published in Geoscientific Model Development received the Best Paper Award 2017 from the Faculty of Mathematics and Geoinformation of TU Wien.
In the media and outreach
Apr 2019 | Contribution to exhibition in museum
- Matthias gave an interview and contributed material for a new exhibition about "Plants and Humans" in the German Hygiene Museum Dresden.
- The exhisbition will be open from 19. April 2019 until 19. April 2020.
Oct 2018 | Media reports about our Nature study
- Our recent study published in Nature was covered by several media in Austria, Germany and the UK: Austrian TV, Der Standard, Die Presse, Bild der Wissenschaft, FAZ, The Scotsman
- A poem about our work.
- Matthias was also interviewed: With Shorter Winters, Plants Bloom Early and Die Young.
Jul 2016 | Greening of the Earth
- "Die Erde wird grüner" Matthias was interviewed about the greening of the Earth: VDI Nachrichten and fluter.
Family
Matthias Forkel is father of two small children. We are a German-Czech family in Austria = Europe. We spend our free time in our garden, at playgrounds in Vienna, or in forests around Vienna, in eastern Czechia, in the Zittau mountains, in Germany, or somewhere else in Europe.
Das Klima der Erde ...
... is a German website about basics of climatology for teachers and students. Matthias created and maintained the website until 2015.